Favored Son
by Dew k Mosi
Summary: What would have happened if it was not Katherine Anne Summers kidnapped by the Shi'ar that fateful day when their small plane was attacked? What if it had been young Alex who had been stolen away?
1. Beginnings

Favored Son

1.  
  
He is twenty-two years old, even though he doesn't know it. He has been here since he was seven, and he has been a model patient. The only thing that ever caused a problem was the emergence of his mutant ability at thirteen, DNA knowing nothing of mental illness. He had unleashed a blast of energy strong enough to demolish the entire wing of the hospital that had been his home since he fled from reality.   
  
Now, he wears a slim black suit beneath his pajamas, equipped with a device at the collar that calculates his power levels. When they near the maximum, the attendants are trained to use a special machine to siphon his powers back to a manageable level. That happens infrequently though, once a month, unless a traumatic event has occurred. A thunderstorm that blew a branch through his window, nearly decapitating him one winter, was enough to overload his powers three times in a single night.  
  
But that is rare, and he is hardly the worst patient here. Mutants are no less prone to mental illess than normal humans, and there are many of them here, some who have hurt others with their powers, some who have hurt themselves, even one who claims maggots the size of er spaniels live in his gut.  
  
Patient 9-012-0F-3, Alexander Summers, more often called Alex by the doctors, and 'Lexxy by the female nurses and interns, is not insane, however. He is technically "traumatically disassociative" catatonic in a way that resembles autistic. Tested at above average in one of the more lucid moments that only occurred in his earliest years here, he nevertheless spends his life in a semi-dreamlike stare, reacting to the stimuli of the world only as much as is required to keep himself fed, cleaned and rested.  
  
He has been like this since the plane crash that nearly killed him, his brother and his mother.  
  
The plane crash that took his father's life.

He travels with the royal entourage, the thin golden chain around his throat really the only sign that he is not exactly a guest. He has been with Majestor D'Ken and his Sister/Wife Lady Deathbird, for about a month now, ever since the plane was taken by the ship, rescued from certain doom. He is grateful to his new master for saving his life, but he is too little to know how to express it. They speak in their complex language and ignore him for the time being.  
  
D'Ken looks over and smiles at the little human, who is proving to be more entertaining that he expected. He is a charming little child, and the Majestor has amused himself teaching him little dances and how to sing the national ode in a sweet slightly accented voice Even by human standards he is quite young, and that makes him eager to please his new masters.  
  
The boy stands at the rail of the royal barge, watching with interest as the unfamiliar planet passes beneath him. "My daddy flies much higher." He chirps.  
  
"Your daddy is a naughty man, Little Hatchling." D'Ken says, speaking the boy's language flawlessly. He is Majestor, he knows all things.  
  
"Naughty?" the boy frowns.  
  
D'Ken beckons him close, "We rescue his damaged plane, we bring him to the comforts of our home, we treat him as a welcomed guest and he turns against us. I ask very little of him and he fights me, he hurts me. That is not a good thing, is it?"  
  
The boy thinks for a moment and then shakes his head, "No, it is not nice. Why doesn't my daddy like you?"  
  
"Because he thinks I will hurt you." D'Ken says, "Have I hurt you?"  
  
"No, Master." The boy says, earnestly, saying the last word in perfect Shi'ar as he was taught to. "Can I see my daddy and mommy? I'll tell them you are nice and they will listen. Is my brother with them?"  
  
"Your mother and your brother are dead, Hatchling." Lady Deathbird says, cruelly, "Your father killed them. He killed them with his stubbornness."  
  
The boy frowns at her, too little to really understand, "When will I see them again?"  
  
"Sooner than you think if you don't shut your yammering." Deathbird growls, ruffling her feathered wings.  
  
His face falls and his lower lip trembles. He doesn't understand what she just said, since she spoke her own language, but the tone is very clear. His eyes fill up with tears.  
  
"Deathbird, you are unkind." D'Ken scolds, extending a hand to the child. "Come, Alex, and sit with me and be still. Our lady is in bad temper. She doesn't like to travel under the power of anyone's wings but her own."  
  
Little Alex comes and let's the Majestor pull him up onto his lap. He leans against the man and says, mournfully, "I wish I could fly."  
  
"That is my sister's talent." Says D'Ken, stroking the hatchling's yellow head fur. "Your talent will be something different."  
  
"What will it be?" Alex says, eagerly, forgetting his tears for the moment.  
  
"We will see soon." D'Ken promises Alex, "And, I am certain it will be something great."  
  
Alex gets a far off look in his eyes and says, "No. Its something awful." 


	2. Alex

On Saturdays, visitors come to see the lunatics. Some have families tending to them, some had lawyers.  
  
Alex Summers had his mother, Katherine Anne. She was a small woman who had suffered much. The death of her husband, the sickness of her younger son, the isolation of the older one who was so busy all the time that she rarely saw him. But she is a strong woman, and she is a good one, When she comes to the hospital, she often stays past her visits with her son to play with some of the children, even though it is usually past visiting hours, and she doesn't shy away from even the difficult ones. She was well known by the patients and the staff and every Saturday like clockwork, she arrived at nine am and didn't leave until five pm.  
  
She has never once missed a day.  
  
On nice days, like today, she takes Alex for walks in the gardens, refusing to use a wheelchair. She believes that once he sits down he'll never walk again. The doctors and the nurses comply with her wishes, though the catatonic young man can be strangely stubborn at times, refusing to co-operate with them when they try and make him walk. That is another rarity. Usually, if he is told to go somewhere, he does not put up much of a fuss.  
  
Kathy and her son sit in the grass today on a blanket not emblazoned with the hospital name. She brought a picnic lunch, and her son eats expressionlessly, not reacting to the sun, or even her hand when she puts sun screen on his fair cheeks to keep them from reddening.  
  
"Its nice to have a change from hospital food." She says, cheerfully, "I made your favorites." She doesn't know what his favorites are. He hasn't spoken a word since the crash. When he was little it was grilled cheese with pickles and strawberry popsicles.  
  
Its what she still brings him. She doesn't know what else to do.  
  
"I spoke to your brother the other day," Kathy chatters, knowing that he is in there somewhere and can hear him. If she tries hard enough, she will be able to reach him someday. "He asked about you. Said he might visit soon."  
  
This is, of course, a lie. Scott never asks about Alex, never wants to talk about him. Kathy used to insist her older son visit his little brother, but by the time Scott was in his early teens it was clear that his presence was disruptive.  
  
Alex looks at her when she mentions Scott, and she almost believes that his chastising her for her lie. But there is really nothing in his eyes. He is looking at her simply because she is talking and he has learned, even in his catatonia, that it is expected.  
  
Kathy's heart catches in her throat and to cover the sudden flood of tears, she turns to the ice chest and gets him another popsicle.


	3. D'Alken

He is sleeping in his customary place, at the foot of his master's bed. He has forgotten an time when anything was different. He is twelve years old in the measurements of the world he had been plucked from, but he doesn't remember that either.  
  
He looks almost like a true member of his adopted race now, wearing night clothes of Shi'ar design. When he goes outside, he ties his ridiculous yellow head fur into a tail and stuffs it beneath a feathered wig so that no one might be offended by his appearance. In every other way, he looks almost Shi'ar born, the designs around his eyes painted by one of the giggling chambermaids. They are amused by the boy, and like to tease him. He is not unhappy by their attentions. They treat him well and they are never mean. Sometimes they kiss him when no one is looking and he likes that.  
  
His Master renamed him D'Alken, which meant roughly, "Belonging to D'Ken" and he is proud of the name. He _does_ belong to the Majestor and he is happy about it. He is fed well, and is rarely beaten, He is granted every benefit that the court has to offer, and of course, there are the aforementioned chambermaids.  
  
D'Alken's Master and Mastress sleep in a tangle of feathers in the big bed that his little trundle is attached to. When he lies awake sometimes and listens to them breathe, he gets the fear that one day they will die and he will be left alone. That scares him more than anything.  
  
He is not sure why.  
  
There is a sudden pounding on the door and a frantic voice cries, "Majestor! Majestor!"  
  
D'Ken sits up, instantly alert. Lady Deathbird throws the pillow over her head, "Kill whoever that is!" she orders.  
  
D'Alken kneels in his trundle, his brown human eyes half-hidden in his sleep tousled mop of fur. He pushed it out of his face, in anxious disgust. "Master?" he asks in perfectly unaccented Shi'ar.  
  
"Stay." The Majestor says, firmly.  
  
The little pet does as he is told, slumping disappointed in the trundle.  
  
D'Ken stalks to the door, pulling a robe over his nakedness. He yanks the door open, angrily, revealing a cowering chamberlain. "How dare you disturb our rest!"  
  
"But, Majestor, there is trouble at the mines." The trembling servant says.  
  
D'Ken's eyes flash dangerous, "It is that human again, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, my Lord."  
  
The Majestor looks at D'Alken, "Hatchling, get dressed in your formal clothes, quickly. We are going to the mines."  
  
The boy nods, eagerly. He has never been allowed to accompany his Master to the mines before, and has always wanted to. "Yes, Master, thank you, Master."  
  
He is out of his sleep clothes and dressed in the miniature suit that matches D'Ken's royal garb. His offensive fur is tucked out of sight beneath his high feathered wig and the tattoos around his eyes shine.  
  
D'Ken calls his personal guard, Gladiator, to his side and they set out for the Mines of Alisbor, where political prisoners toil for gold and gems and crystals and coal, depending on whatever whim strikes the Majestor's fancy...whether or not that particular stone can be found in the mines at all. He attaches the long change around D'Alken's throat to his own wrist. "To keep you safe." He tells the child, "Some of the prisoners would not think twice about hurting my favorite."  
  
The hatchling is pleased and grateful to be shown such consideration. He strokes the chain, lovingly, wishing he could express his love his benefactor, but D'Ken would never allow such familiarity in the presence of Gladiator.  
  
The Mines soon rise before the barge, the mountains dark and craggy. The only since of disturbance is the dust rising from one of the shafts in a smoky plume...  
  
...that and the bodies of the three Shi'ar that lay in a tidy row, their head feathers matted with blood and filth.  
  
D'Ken, his pet in tow, steps off the royal barge to look down at the corpses, solemnly. He sends up a prayer to the Gods to accept these poor souls. D'Alken, without prodding, adds his voice, his flawless pronunciation ringing clear and respectful, the tongue perfectly learned from being so young when he was brought to this planet. The Majestor smiles, proudly, on his little toy and, pats the boy on the cheek with affection.  
  
But then his smile fades. "Where is the human?" he spits.  
  
The guards bring forward a horrifying figure that makes D'Alken hide behind his master, peering around him fearfully. The man is thin and filthy, fresh blood and bruises cowering every inch of exposed skin, the fur on his head and chin matted. He glares at D'Ken with undisguised hatred.  
  
"Corsair, again you do my people harm." D'Ken scolds with the tone of a disapproving father. "Why do you persist on rebellion against me when it only results in more pain?"  
  
"Because I hate you D'Ken." The human, Corsair, says bluntly. Gladiator, without a word, sweeps out a foot and catches the man in the knees. He falls, with a grunt of pain and still, manages to look up, boldly at the Majestor. "I will not rest until you are dead." Gladiator rewards this with a crack across the man's face. Corsair, bitterly, begins to laugh, an almost hysterical sound.  
  
"Or until you are dead?" D'Ken asks, smugly. "Is that more to your liking?"  
  
"What have I to live for?" Corsair spits, "You have taken everything from me. My home, my freedom, my wife and sons."  
  
D'Ken narrows his eyes, "And yet, you foolishly and stubbornly refuse to give me the one piece of information that I seek."  
  
The human painfully gets to his feet, spitting a mouthful of blood on the hard packed dirt. "I will not betray my planet, even if I knew of a weakness you could exploit. I will never tell you how to conquer Earth."  
  
"Then you will never see it again." D'Ken growls.  
  
Corsair bows his head tiredly, "I have accepted that."  
  
"Then why do you continue to make these ridiculous attempts to escape?" D'Ken waves his hand at the corpses, the chain attaching him to his pet rattling slightly.  
  
The human meets the Shi'ar's eyes. "Because I am Christopher Summers, and it is not in my nature to surrender."  
  
"D'Alken, come to where this man can see you." D'Ken says, his eyes not breaking Corsair's stare.  
  
The boy does as he is commanded, looking up fearfully at the mad and disrespectful human. "Yes, Master?"  
  
"Remove your wig."  
  
Timidly, ashamed of his appearance, the boy does so, revealing his long yellow fur, sweat matted from the wig.  
  
Christopher Summers nearly faints in shock, "You...my God, Alex?"  
  
D'Alken frowns, not recognizing the word, "What?"  
  
"Tell him your name, D'Alken, speak his language." The Majestor orders.  
  
The hatchling nods, obediently, "I am D'Alken of Royal House Neramani."  
  
Corsair's eyes narrow, and he lunges for the child. His captors hold him tightly, "D'Ken, what have you done to him?" he demands.  
  
D'Alken pulls backwards, pressing frightened against his master. D'Ken folds his arms around the boy and says, "He is mine, Corsair. I choose his life and his death. He does what I ask, and is rewarded. He will be a Guardsman when he is old enough, and perhaps he will lead my armies to your precious Earth." He looks down at his pet, "Would you like that, Hatchling?"  
  
"If that is what you wish for me, Master." D'Alken says, quietly, cowering from the enraged human.  
  
Corsair's face falls, "Alex, Alex, look at me. I am your father. Don't you remember me?"  
  
D'Alken's brown eyes fill with tears and he looks up at his Master, "I don't understand." He says, in Shi'ar. "He's scaring me."  
  
D'Ken strokes the boy's horrible yellow fur, "He will not scare you anymore, D'Alken. I think Corsair is going to behave now, or something awful might happen." He looks over his pet's head and says, "Is that clear, human?"  
  
Corsair falls to his knees, "Please, Majestor, he is only a boy. Don't do this. Don't do this to him. I will tell you whatever you want."  
  
The Majestor smirks, "It is too late for that, today, Corsair. Perhaps I will come and question you again sometime. Or perhaps, I will simply throw you into the deepest mine and forget all about you, while I train my young hatchling here to become Shi'ar's greatest warrior."  
  
"Alex, please!" Corsair cries, as the boy is lead away and he is yanked roughly to his feet.  
  
D'Ken and D'Alken board the barge and the boy sits sadly at his master's feet. "I am so sorry to have shamed you with my fear."  
  
The Majestor strokes the boy's head, "You did exactly what you needed to do, my love. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed."


	4. Hope

Kathy Summers gets a call one afternoon from her son's main doctor, a gaunt Egyptian born man named Ahmet Abdol, a specialist in traumatic disassociative problems. He has something to discuss with her regarding Alex's treatment, and ever the devoted mother she takes the next day off. Her heart pounds when she makes that drive. So many times, she has made this journey, to find something has set Alex back. When his powers manifested, she had arrived to the debris and the turmoil and when she discovered her son had caused it with his sudden mutant abilities...  
  
But there is still always that small hope, that hope that he has woken up, or shown some sort of reaction to treatment. Even though the doctors tell her, and she knows logically, that the longer he remains unresponsive, the less likely it is.  
  
Still, the woman has not given up. If she does, who will pull Alex free of his imprisonment? The doctors are good people but they have so many other patients to deal with, ones with a higher rate of recovery. And, Scott? She would never say anything bad about either of her boys, but Scott is an important man, a busy one, with so many other things on his mind. He doesn't seem capable of the constant care his brother needs. Perhaps it is for the best that she bear this burden for them all. She is the mother.  
  
It is her duty. It is her honor.  
  
Dr. Abdol, who is so pinched and desiccated a man that Kathy has secretly nicknamed him the Living Pharaoh, however seems remarkably optimistic when he takes her into his office and introduced her to a thin, elegant doctor named Lillian Andrews. "Last month I went to one of Dr. Andrews's lectures on her work with catatonics and some of her theories are controversial, but I think you would like to hear them."  
  
Dr. Andrews extends a long, graceful hand, "Mrs. Summers, it is a pleasure to meet you."  
  
"Please, its Kathy." The worried mother says, feeling very small town next to this refined woman. "Are you taking Alex's case? It upsets him to have strangers around."  
  
Dr. Andrew smiles, and offers Kathy a seat. "I have looked over your son's case. He fits the profile perfectly for my procedure. Let me explain. Many people with Alexander's condition have chemical imbalances that cause the autism, or perhaps a brain injury, or genetic defect. Alex has different genetics due to his mutancy, but that is not what has caused the catatonia. If you prick his finger, he will move it. True catatonics tend to have delayed reaction to pain and other stimuli."  
  
Kathy narrows her eyes, "You have hurt my son to see if he reacts?"  
  
The doctor frowns, "No, no, I am sorry to worry you. Your son receives a barrage of tests every couple of months, I am sure you are aware. Reflex is one of the things we look for, normally. His motor functions, as you well know, are still remarkably coordinated. He can catch a thrown ball, react to changes in light and temperature, follow commands even intricate ones. As he has aged his scores have remained consistent, without even the slight loss that the rest of us experience because a fully functioning human brain sometimes tend to get in the way."  
  
"I know all this." Kathy says, "But what caused it in the first place? No one has ever answered that. He was injured in the plane crash, we all were. How Chris managed to land it when he was so...but anyway, Alex's injuries were remarkably minor compared to his brother's, but Scott..."  
  
"I looked at Dr. Summers' medical history as well, as much as it pertained to the case, and yours as well. Only regarding the crash injuries." Dr. Andrews says, "Which was a matter of public record due to the FAA investigation."  
  
Kathy frowns again, "I don't think I like being the last to know about this."  
  
Dr. Abdol shakes his head, "Kathy, I think you are misunderstanding. Dr. Andrews is not overstepping her boundaries, here. Her success rate is 85. She is a bit of a maverick, but I care deeply about your son. I have watched him grow into a man and never even be aware of it. I would never do something that I feel is bad for him. Dr. Andrews can reach him. He might be able to live a normal life again, Kathy. All I ask is that you give her a chance."  
  
The woman steeples her fingers under her chin, and says, "What can you do that has not been done before?"  
  
"My technique is a form of telepathy."  
  
"Telepaths cannot reach Alex." Kathy says, feeling her hopes sink, which is odd because she hadn't realized they had begun to rise. "We've brought them in. His mind is...just not there."  
  
"But it is, Kathy." Dr. Andrews says, "Not entirely, though. I think your son's mind is trapped somewhere. Something that happened during the crash disconnected his consciousness and sent it somewhere that for him is safe. He is not hiding because he is afraid, but because he doesn't know he is hiding. I have abilities that will allow me to follow the path he took, to insinuate myself into this other reality, and draw him back to his true self."  
  
"He has been catatonic 2/3rds of his life." Abdol says, "This other reality will be more real to him than this one, more normal. If Dr. Andrews can reach him at all, he might not want to return. You have to be prepared for that, Kathy."  
  
Dr. Andrews takes Kathy's hand in hers. "I want to help your son. But I will only try if you give me permission."  
  
Kathy stands up, "I'll discuss it with Alex."  
  
Dr. Andrews looks at Dr. Abdol and he nods, "Ok then."  
  
The trio go to Alex's room, his home for the past four years since being moved from the children's room when he was eighteen. He doesn't have much in the way of possessions. But on the walls are dozens of brightly colored drawings from the children of the hospital, who had been his friends when he was in their ward. Alex is attracted to color.  
  
He is sitting on his bed, cross legged, flipping through a geology book she had given him, studying the pictures as if he understands what he is seeing. He seems to like the pictures of the stones and the crystals that the earth produces. One of the idiosyncrasies of his illness is that he blindly mimics normal human behavior, so well sometimes it appears he is recovering.  
  
But his lack of reaction when his mother and doctors enter show that it is only an illusion.  
  
Kathy, gently, takes the book from him and he continues to stare at his hands, making motions like he is still turning pages. She puts her hand on his to stop the movement and says, softly, "Alex, look at me for a moment."  
  
Obediently, he turns his head to look at her, a frown creasing his forehead. With a mother's touch, Kathy strokes a finger between his eye brows and the creases fade. She smiles, sadly, and his brown eyes almost, almost try to focus.  
  
"Alex, honey, I need you to try and understand what I am tell you. This lady is a doctor. She can help you maybe." She tells him, speaking softly. "If you help her, she can bring you back to us, back to me...back to yourself."  
  
His eyes open wide, and fear fills them. Kathy and Abdol pull back a little startled to have received so strong a reaction. The doctor instantly reaches out and flips up his patient's collar, checking the device that measure's Alex's power levels. The little gauge on his slim black undersuit reads that they are at containable level and the dark man sighs in audible relief.  
  
"Alex? Alexander?" his mother whispers, "Lexxy, are you there?"  
  
Dr. Andrews comes to Alex's side with the grace of a bird in flight and says,"I am going to help you, Alex. There is nothing to fear. I know where you are, and I know how to bring you home." She presses her forehead to his and makes a strange chirping sound, a soothing sound that makes fear fade from the young man's eyes. She steps back and looks at Abdol, "I am ready to begin."  
  
Alex's hands suddenly turn palm up under his mother's, his fingers entwining with hers. He brings her hands to his lips, the first sign of affection he has shown for fifteen years.  
  
Kathy looks at Dr, Andrews through tear filled eyes, "He is ready, too."  
  
Dr. Andrews sits beside the empty shell that had grown from the terrified child who had fallen from the sky and he looks at her without being prompted. "Help me find you, Alex."  
  
And, somewhere within Alexander Summers, he reaches out for her hand.


	5. Reunion

He takes her hand and helps her out of the craft, his eyes lowered respectfully. Lilandra holds his hand and looks around the hangar, hardly believing that she is at last home. She studies the young man assisting her, and recognizes Alex Summers, but there are changes to him here that disturb her beyond vocalization. The tattoos that curl gracefully up and down from his brown eyes, the feathered wig, the ceremonial clothes, the submissive yet forceful way he moves like a soldier awaiting an order.  
  
But is the golden chain around his throat that draws her attention, more symbolic than binding it nevertheless tells her the most important thing about the man Alex Summers is here.  
  
"My god, you are a slave." She whispers.  
  
The young man drops her hand and looks up into her eyes, "I am the Chosen of the Majestor." He says, managing to put every possible ounce of dignity into the statement, pronouncing the bird-song language of the Shi'ar as if he had been born to it.   
  
Lilandra feels a great pain in her chest, looking sadly at the young man, "What do they call you?"  
  
"I am D'Alken of House Neramani." He answers, proud of the name.  
  
She wants to say something but in the end she merely offers her arm, "Take me to my brother,"  
  
D'Alken takes her arm, relieved that he doesn't have to talk about himself anymore, "My Lord apologizes for not receiving you himself."  
  
"Well, a Majestor's time is never his own." Lilandra smiles, understandingly.  
  
"No, my Lady, it is not." D'Alken agrees and he escorts her to his skimmer, emblazoned with the royal crest.  
  
She is surprised to see that it is a ground model. "You don't fly, D'Alken?"  
  
"No." he admits, "It is my shame but I am uncomfortable with upper sky journeys."  
  
"Afraid of flying?" she asks.  
  
He looks her in the eye and says, "Afraid of falling, my Lady."  
  
Lilandra nods wisely as if she knows a secret that D'Alken has forgotten, which possibly she does. She changes the subject, "What did D'Ken tell you of me?"  
  
"I know you are his oldest sister." He answers, "And that you were presumed to be lost in battle. Your arrival has set the palace in an uproar." The slave says, his eyes twinkling mischievously.  
  
Lilandra smirks, "I imagine Deathbird is none to pleased. I know she was the last one to mourn my death."  
  
He shrugs, and slides behind the controls of the skimmer, "I am not privy to my mastress's thoughts, Lady Lilandra."  
  
She smiles, "You have been trained very well, D'Alken. No questions as to where I have been?"  
  
The young man looks fixedly at the road ahead of him, the skimmer passing barely a foot above the hardpack, "If your Ladyship wishes to tell me. It is not in my upbringing to question my betters." The life fades from his face and he says, bluntly, "As you said, I have been trained very well."  
  
Lilandra looks at this tall and handsome man, trying to see the real him beneath the wing and ink and 'uniform.' He is not what she would term a lesser being on any world, in any reality, but she suddenly understands that more than his body had been tamed by her brother. Freeing him and sending him home to where he belonged, was going to be harder than she expected when she first set her faux-human eyes on him in another dimension. This needed to be done delicately or she was going to damage him.  
  
"I have been trapped in another dimension for the past fifteen years, Only now have I managed to escape." She says, carefully, "I was abandoned on a planet named Earth."  
  
D'Alken looks at her, sharply, and says, "Earth?"  
  
She hopes for just a moment that his reaction is one of recognition but instead his eyes grow cold and greedy, a look she has seen before on her brother's face, the look of battle lust that had left her stranded for so very long.  
  
"My Master will want to know everything that you learned, how you escaped, what their secret is." He says, eagerly, "You will be able to give him the means to at last conquer that planet. It is his dearest desire, his greatest obsession."  
  
"And you share in his mania, young D'Alken?" Lilandra asks.  
  
The slave, body and mind and soul the property of the ruthless Majestor, smiles a hard and frightening smile. "It is what I have trained for since I was a child, My Lady."  
  
Lilandra looks ahead at the palace rising before them and suppresses a shudder.

D'Ken and Lady Deathbird await in their throne room, for their long last sibling. She smirks at the sight of them as D'Alken leads her into the grand chamber. The Majestor is puffed up with pomp and importance, his sister/consort is miserable, her feathers ruffled anxiously. Lilandra stands a moment at the door and takes in the sight, wondering how things had changed since her shipwreck.  
  
She brushes at her silver banded armor and removes her helmet before going to greet them. D'Alken immediately holds his hands out to take it. She smiles, gently at him.  
  
"Little Human, you are not my slave. It will not harm me to hold my own helmet."  
  
D'Alken smiles, too, and this is not a smile of lust for mayhem. He looks for just a moment like a child who has suddenly found a friend. "It would be my honor, my Lady, to carry it for you."  
  
Lilandra pauses a moment, and then hands it to him, His hands accidentally touch hers and his face reddens.  
  
"My boy, don't just stand there moon-eyed!" D'Ken calls, 'Bring our lady sister to greet us."  
  
The young man, embarrassed by his attentions, flushes an even deep red, which Lilandra finds charming, "Please, this way, My lady." He manages.  
  
Lilandra is halfway down the long processional before she breaks into an undignified run. D'Ken has her in his arms before she can say another word, "Lil, you have returned to me, you have returned to us."  
  
"D'Ken, my dearest brother, my love, how I have missed you." She says, ruffling his head plume with her warm breath on his neck. "I have missed so much. Your ascension to the throne. Your marriage."  
  
They part and Lady Deathbird slowly descends from the dais. "My sister." She greets, in a voice of ice, "Welcome home."  
  
"My Lady Liege." Lilandra makes a respectful bob of her head that belies the equally frosty tone of her own words, "You look well."  
  
"As do you." Deathbird says, the feathers on her unseemly wings bristling, "Especially considering the reports of your death."  
  
Lilandra smirks, "Perhaps that report was filed too hastily. What was it that happened, D'Ken? Why was I left behind in that dimension?"  
  
"The portal failed." D'Ken says, "The Earthers defended themselves somehow against our attack. The sample was damaged beyond repair and we have been unable to retrieve any useful information from what we did manage to take."  
  
Lilandra looks over at D'Alken, who does not react to this strange and cryptic report in the slightest. He stands unobtrusively beside his master's throne, looking for all intents and purposes like a well-heeled pet, obviously what D'Ken has made him into. "What you have done to this one is remarkable. He is so young. You must have acquired him as a mere child."  
  
D'Ken reaches over and runs a hand down the tattooed cheek of his toy and smiles, "D'Alken has been my greatest joy since he came to me. He will be the one to lead my armies when Earth is at last at my mercies. Is that not right, my hatchling?"  
  
"It is my greatest honor to serve as your sword, Master." D'Alken says, earnestly.  
  
"I have no doubt that it is, D'Alken." D'Ken says, "Now, Lilandra, walk with me and tell me all that you have seen, all that you have done on that infernal planet. I wish to know it like I know my own. That dimension tests me, and you know how I hate to be tested."  
  
Lilandra takes his arm, "How well I know."  
  
D'Ken looks at his servant as he leaves, "D'Alken, have the chambermaids reopen Lady Lilandra's rooms and tell the cooks to prepare a feast. Tonight we celebrate our sister's homecoming."  
  
The human bows his head, "I am already gone." He says.  
  
Then, Deathbird is alone, forgotten in the empty room. "The Precious One has returned. This does not bode well for my chances at survival." She mutters beneath her breath, "Our Lady Lilandra must not be allowed to reclaim her place in D'Ken's heart. With the human there already, there will be no more room for me."  
  
An evil smile suddenly crosses her face.  
  
"Unless his heart is emptied, entirely." She muses.


	6. Celebration

The Royal Court of Chandilar is unused to celebration. Majestor D'Ken is a hard ruler who demands perfection from his people and himself, and so wastes little time on frivolity. In fact, the one whimsy he has ever been known to allow himself was the training of his little pet. There were those who said (never where it could be heard, of course) that his fondness for the boy was of a deeper and les pure nature. But that was, of course, pure fabrication. D'Ken had never used his toy in the way a man might use a woman. In fact, D'Alken spent most of his nights in the arms of the giggling chambermaids who found his feather-less body pleasing and took great pleasure in tangling their fingers in his yellow head fur which now stretches below his shoulders, a shiny corn silk waterfall.  
  
That temptation is taken from the giddy girls, tonight, his fur hidden out of sight by the high wig he wears. The royal court is dressed in their finest to honor the return of the Lady Lilandra and D'Alken is no different despite his status as a slave. He is the chosen of the Majestor, and he must not disgrace him. In his capacity as such, he works closely with the servants, all of whom are chosen Shi'ar, only he himself representing another race. There are few who take offense at the off-worlder's sharply barked commands. They know he will be generous when referring to their performance to his Master. D'Alken is a strict taskmaster but a fair one.  
  
D'Alken has a special reason for wanting this celebration to go well. He is enamored of the Lady Lilandra, and this is the only way he will over be able to express his affections, considering her elevated status. Not for the first time does he wish for a different circumstance of birth, but this time the longing is so much more urgent.  
  
If Lilandra knows of the slave's feelings, she doesn't show it, though she watches him closely. At her side, her brother notices her attentions.  
  
"He is perfection, is he not?" D'Ken asks, "Far better than I ever expected."  
  
"He is so well trained." Lilandra muses, sipping her wine and watching D'Alken laugh lightly at an off-color joke told by one of the old men of the court, "Having spent so many years with his kind, I cannot believe it would be possible to tame an Earther."

"D'Alken was a frightened child when he was sampled. It took only a little kindness and manipulation to make him mine." D'Ken says with a shrug. "His father was not so easy. Beatings, tortures, years in the Mines and the fool was still not broken. He tried several times to escape, until finally I showed him what his son had become. Once he understood that D'Alken was mine and any misbehavior would result in punishments given to the boy, he became as docile as the child."  
  
"By taming the son, you broke the father." Lilandra ponders, stroking her head feathers, "Interesting technique. Where is the Earther now?"  
  
"Still in the mines." D'Ken says, his tongue loosened by drink and the joy of the evening. "Corsair is my eyes and ears. He tells me of impending revolts or of dissatisfied thoughts of my own people, in return got my promises to keep his child safe. The idiot clings to the hope that he will be reunited with the boy one day. He has no idea that D'Alken doesn't even know he exists."  
  
Lilandra is shocked at the deviousness of it all, and wonders if her time on Earth has mellowed her, or if she had simply never realized before how evil her brother truly was, "The Earther has turned informant to save a boy unaware he needs saving." She says, softly. "D'Ken, you are truly a monster."  
  
The Majestor smiles, proudly. "Yes, my sweet sister. That is why I rule worlds in all dimensions and all realities."  
  
Lilandra raises her glass to her brother, "You are a credit to the House of Neramani."  
  
D'Ken returns her toast, "_We_ will bring glory to our family name."  
  
Sulking alone on the other side of the room, surrounded by fawning court ladies, many of whom have affixed false wings to their gown in imitation of her, Lady Deathbird glares at the couple. She is no fool. She knows she is an evolutionary throwback, substandard breeding material, despite the fact that her title has made her ridiculously recessive wings fashionable. D'Ken had always preferred perfect Lilandra and she had been nothing more than a poor second choice.

Dr. Abdol takes Dr. Andrew's pulse, silently. He lifts the woman's eyelids and shines hie penlight into them. Very little response.  
  
"It this Good?" Kathy Summers asks, stroking her son's hair, soothingly, "Is this what's supposed to happen?"  
  
Abdol frowns, "I honestly don't know, Kathy."  
  
A few moments after making contact with Alex's mind, Dr. Andrews had slumped, senseless to the bed. Alex's only reaction was to allow his head to sink to his mother's lap. The doctor's eyes have closed but Alex's remain wide open.  
  
""She is in a trance." Abdol says, worriedly. "Self induced hypnosis."  
  
"I don't see that it is doing Alex any good." Kathy says.  
  
"Give her some time." The Doctor's eyes are flashing white in his dark face. "He has been lost for fifteen years. It might take sometime for her to find him."  
  
Kathy bends over her son, and whispers, "Alex, are you trying? Are you trying to come home?"  
  
His eyelids flutter closed and though no one notices and he makes no sound, the catatonic mouths the word, "_Lilandra..._"


	7. Traitor

The Mines of Alisbor teem with activity, a thousand thousand men and women from all over the universe labor constantly, working in shifts. They drop in exhaustion when they are allowed back to their barracks, and if they are too tired to take the small amount of food they are given, they will weaken and die. Those who cannot be roused when their shift begins are burnt in the furnaces that power the smelters, often before their last breath has been taken.  
  
For the past decade, there have been no riots or revolts. The crafty human who keeps his ear to the stones knows every thought that passes through the minds of his fellow miners. No one speaks to the one called Corsair to tell him of dissent, but he knows everything anyway. No one knows how.  
  
But he is diligent and wary, and though attempts have been made on his life because of this, he continues to inform his Shi'ar masters of impending insurrections.  
  
He has reasons for being who he is now.  
  
Lilandra's skimmer is not marked with the royal crest and she does not announce her arrival. The mine keepers come to greet her anyway.  
  
"I have come to see the human Corsair." She says, regally, to the Shi'ar who have dropped to respectful knees upon recognizing her as bearing the plumage of the royal family. She slips her silver helmet on to cover it.  
  
The Mine-keepers are used to the Majestor's visits with the cowardly informant and ask who questions. "Raza, escort the Majestor's emissary to Corsair's tunnel."  
  
Raza, a Shi'ar man fitted with various cybernetics, looks at Lilandra with his one natural eye filled with a strange emotion that she cannot define. "The Kitten will be with him." He says, in a voice that sounds slightly metallic, like the devices have made him something more machine than man. "She will not like the looks of you, My Lady."  
  
Lilandra, eyes flashing beneath her helmet, smiles, "I am not afraid of a slave."  
  
Raza's half hidden face twitches in an expression of amusement.  
  
The journey down into the tunnel is not pleasant. Screaming orders, slamming noises made by tools on stone and whips on flesh, grunted songs from some of the teams in languages she knew and didn't know, and lots and lots of moans from the workers. From the deeper pits, cold wind whistles. From still others, sparks from the smelters.  
  
Lilandra shows no emotion as she passes the slaves. She might have grown soft in exile, but she is still Shi'ar. These people are here for a reason.  
  
"Watch yourself, Lady." Raza says, "The Cat will be stalking around here. She is bold in defense of the Human. He saved her life from a rape gang, one of the few noble things that worthless coward has ever done."  
  
"Sounds as if you disapprove of his helping the empire." Lilandra says.  
  
Raza looks at her, "I disapprove of cowardice and treachery. Corsair has proven himself full of both." He sniffs as a slightly musky odor fills the close tunnel. "The Kitten is upon us."  
  
As if cued, a blur of orange and white springs from the shadows with a growling hiss, ducking across the tunnel into another area of blackness, green eyes the only thing visible, shining in the dim light of the mines. Raza reacts with a blast from his arm mounted stunner, an energy bolt that slams to the rocky wall. "Next time it is in your head, Cat!" Raza spits.  
  
"Hepzibah!" a voice shouts, hoarse and concerned. It is a name, apparently, though the rest of the shout is in a growling guttural language that Lilandra recognizes as mephitisoid. Explains the references to the creature being a cat. Mephitisoids are felinoid.  
  
Sure enough, the creature emerges from the shadows, a thin but still shapely white and orange cat-like woman, obviously young but fierce. She growls at Lilandra and says, "Little birdie, come closer."  
  
"I said that is enough." A man approaches, warily, putting his hand out to the cat. "You knew what I was when you chose to be my companion. You know what it entails."  
  
Hepzibah looks pouting at the man, "I do not have to like it, Corsair."  
  
"So this is Corsair." Lilandra says, looking the man over. He is dark from the dirt and the soot of the furnaces, and his long brown hair is pulled up into a top knot to keep it from the dirt and his face is clean shaven except for a mustache that frames a sullen mouth. There is nothing about him that resembles Alex, though Lilandra recognizes his older son Scott in the shape of his face.  
  
Corsair narrows hard eyes and says, "And who might you be? I have no new information for the Majestor and your presence here only angers the miners. Hepzibah can only protect me for so long."  
  
"I can protect you forever." The young girl growls, her long white tail swishing in anger. "I am not afraid of little birds and lizards."  
  
His eyes soften slightly and he says, "I am afraid enough for us both, Hepzibah, I will not have you hurt because I am worthless."  
  
"Raza, wait for us here." Lilandra orders.  
  
"Your Ladyship..." the cyborg frowns.  
  
"I can handle myself." Lilandra snaps. "It is what the Majestor wishes."  
  
Raza bows his head, "I remain here."  
  
Corsair sighs and beckons to Lilandra, "Come with me, My Lady."  
  
She follows him, allowing the cat to take the rear. She is unafraid of Hepzibah, and shows her the disdain she deserves. "I have need..."  
  
"Not here, Woman." Corsair says, coldly, "There are sharper ears than mine in these tunnels, and I am well-hated here."  
  
He leads her to a dead end in the tunnels, the place where he works day in and day out. There is only one entrance because many threats have been made on his life. Hepzibah allows Lilandra to enter, unmolested, but she hunkers down at the opening, glaring and growling. "Can we speak now, Christopher Summers?" Lilandra asks.  
  
Corsair spins to look at her, "Don't speak that name. That man is dead. I am barely Corsair anymore...I am just... the tool of the Majestor."  
  
Lilandra shakes her head, "You are Christopher Summers, from Earth. What my brother has done to you is not unusual, nor irreversible."  
  
He laughs a low bitter laugh, "It is as long as..."  
  
She picks up when his voice trails off, "As long as he has your son."  
  
The man once know as Summers shakes his head, "That boy is no longer my son. As long as I cooperate he is safe, but he isn't my son anymore."   
  
Lilandra frowns, "Are all humans so stupid and selfish?"  
  
Hepzibah growls, her claws and fangs bared. Corsair looks at Lilandra with a look of pure disgust, "You don't know a damn thing, Birdie. Have you seen him? Have you seen what he is?"  
  
"Yes, and I have also seen him in another place, another world, where he is nothing but a shell, and still your wife tries to reach him."  
  
Corsair's jaw drops, "Kath...you saw Kath? How? This is a lie. She's dead. D'Ken killed her. Her and my other son."  
  
"Scott is a doctor of robotics, a man of great importance and stature in your world. I have never met him, but he is known to be a strong and intelligent man, a good man, like his father once was and can be again." Lilandra says, quietly.  
  
"You overestimate me." Corsair says, "Besides, it is impossible. How can they still be alive?"  
  
Lilandra sighs, "What is it you know about my people?"  
  
"I know only what I have been allowed to know by my master." Corsair says, eyes never leaving hers.  
  
"We are multi-dimensional creatures, Summers, we do not exist in just one universe but all at once. When we set our sights on a world that is to be conquered it is necessary that we take a sample of the population via a dimensional gate so that we can analyze them and discover which dimension they exist in." Lilandra explains, "You are your family were to be Earth's sample."  
  
His brown eyes widen and he says, "The ship. I remember something out the window, sleek and silver. Then the boys began to cry and something... exploded. I woke up in a tube...and Alex was there..."  
  
"It was my ship you saw, Summers. It was me who turned the gate on you, planning on taking the four of you all at once. Your plane would have crashed and no one would have ever known what happened to you. Earth would have been ours before your people could mount an defense." Lilandra says, "But something happened. Something that I still do not understand."  
  
Corsair looks at her, too surprised to feel anything else, "My God..." he whispers, "What are you telling me?"  
  
"There was a blast of energy from your ship." Lilandra says, and her voice has grown hoarse with memory, "It damaged the gate. Instead of taking four entire beings, it stole the consciousness of just two, leaving their bodies empty shells in their own world."  
  
The man frowns and says, "Empty shells?"  
  
"The body that you inhabited, Christopher, managed out of sheer will and determination to land the damaged plane, saving the lives of your family, but it was unable to save itself. You are dead in your own world, and your son, your youngest son is trapped helpless in a hospital where your brave strong wife tends to his body and mourns the loss of his mind."  
  
"Because his mind his here, a slave of D'Ken." Corsair whispers.  
  
Lilandra nods, "I have seen him." She says, "In both worlds. Whatever was done to my ship cause me to crash as well, and for the past fifteen years I have been searching for anyone who might help me return to my home world. I found your son and he was the key to bringing me home. Now it is my turn to return the favor. I will send him back to his world, but I cannot do it alone. I need you to help me, I need you to help him."  
  
"Why?" the man asks, "I do not want to see him. We are strangers to each other. I would not be of any help to you."  
  
"Because more than the life of your son is at stake." Lilandra leans close, "He is still connected to Earth. If D'Ken realizes this, or worse if Deathbird does, they will follow his pathways to your world and destroy it. He must be sent home or Earth is doomed."  
  
"I thought that is what you wanted." Corsair says, his eyes narrowed.  
  
"No." Lilandra says, "I want something more." She looks the human in his eyes and says, "I want the throne of Chandilar, I want the Empire for my own."


	8. Treachery

D'Alken sleeps in the arms of one of the maids, the girl's down-feathered arms wrapped around him, her soft legs entwined in his. A second girl spoons against him, breasts to back, whispering sweet bird song to the gentle song of slumber. He had rewarded himself tonight, because he had honored his master by being perfect as his duties.  
  
In the room adjoining, Alex's door unbarred so he might be of immediate access should D'Ken need him, The Majestor and his sister/consort are asleep, heavy sleep from too much wine and too much food. They do not hear the soft sound of a panel slide open, or feel the wind from the revealed passage.  
  
But someone does, someone without the downy feathers to shield him from the sudden chill.  
  
D'Alken sits up, dislodging the girls, who begin to protest. "Shut up." He snaps, in a dark whisper, the bird song of formal Shi'ar gone from his voice. He slips out of bed, half dressed and barefoot to the door. "Stay." He presses his ear to his master's door.  
  
He hears nothing, but there is a coolness coming beneath the door that tells him something was wrong. He retrieves his sword from the pile off crumpled clothes on the floor.  
  
What happens next happens quick enough to almost defy explanation. He throws open the door, just as a sudden whistling is heard, a howling evil sound. Running with a long legged, graceful gait, he swings his sword as his master had taught him, and something slams out of the air, to shatter against the blade, one sliver of shrapnel creasing his cheek.  
  
D'Ken and Deathbird sit up, startled from sleep. In that one panicked moment they do not see the panel that slides shut, or the figure that had ducked back inside it. They see only their loyal servant, poised to attack, standing over their bed with weapon drawn, eyes wild, fur matted. When he sees they are awake, his gaze focuses and his arm lowers to his side.  
  
"D'Alken!" gasps the Majestor.  
  
"Did you see?" Deathbird cries, "He tried to murder me! He tried to murder us both!"  
  
The slave's eyes go wide, "No!" he cries, "No, my master, my dearest mattress, please! I was in my room. I felt a chill and I came to see that your curtains were drawn."  
  
"With a sword!" Deathbird accuses.  
  
"I felt something was wrong." D'Alken falls to his knee, "Please, Master, I would never try to harm you. You must believe that."  
  
"D'Ken, there was no one else in this room!: Deathbird snaps, "He is a liar and an assassin."  
  
The Majestor picks up a shard of metal, the hilt of the dagger that had been thrown at their bed. "D'Alken, go to Gladiator. Tell him to have the palace searched. I want to know that there is no one unwelcome in this palace."  
  
"D'Ken!" Deathbird protests.  
  
"My wife, be still." The lord of the empire says, "I don't know what happened here tonight, but D'Alken did not try to kill me. In fact, I believe he saved my life."  
  
The slave presses his forehead to his master's bed, his brown eyes wet in that disconcerting human way he can't always help. "I am grateful for your trust, my Master. I seek to protect you. You are my master, my father, my only. I have nothing but love and fear for you."  
  
D'Ken puts his hand on D'Alken's head and is surprised he has not noticed before now that the boy has become a man in his service. "Go to Gladiator."  
  
"Yes, Lord." D'Alken rises, grateful and relieved. "I am already gone." He answers as has become his habit. And, then he makes good on his word, disappearing into his room to throw on his gown and shoo away the pair of frightened maids who had peered once or twice around the doorframe.  
  
The Majestor gets out of bed and begins to dress.  
  
Deathbird stays where she is, looking at the shards of the abandoned dagger. "Blast." She murmurs.

"Doctor, his power levels have spiked!" Kathy gasps, alarmed, as warning lights appear on the device on her son's collar. She slips a hand between his pajamas and the slim black suit he wears. There is a definite rise in his body temperature. "What is happening?"  
  
Abdol checks the little monitor. "The levels are higher but not frighteningly so. "Look at his eyelids."  
  
Kathy turns his son's head, and beneath the closed, bruised lids, his eyes mover rapidly back and forth. "Oh, my god, he's dreaming. Doctor, Alex doesn't dream. In fifteen years, he has never shown any signs of REM before. His mind isn't capable you always told me."  
  
Suddenly, Alex flinches out of her grasp, and a stripe of blood creases his cheek.  
  
"What the..." Abdol gasps, looking sharply at where Andrew's body lays slumped motionless. She shows no reaction.  
  
Kathy touches the blood, wonderingly, and wipes at it with a corner of the sheets. A thin scratch crosses his cheekbone, absolutely without cause. "What is happening?" she asks, again.  
  
"I am going to end this. He's not responding well." Abdol says, decisively.  
  
Kathy puts out her hands. "No, no, Doctor, wait." She says, "Please, give this a little while longer. Something is happening, at least something is happening. I don't know what but its his only chance. Its been fifteen years. Just a few more hours."  
  
Abdol sighs and goes to the door. He leans out and calls to one of the nurses, "Annie, bring in Alex's drain, please." He comes back to Kathy. "Let's lay him on the bed beside Andrews. If we are going to keep this up, we are going to need to make sure he doesn't explode on us."


	9. Betrayals

A search of the palace revealed nothing and no one suspicious, leaving the disconcerting thought that the assassination attempt was made by someone near to the throne.  
  
D'Alken stands alone on the balcony that over looks the city, watching the sun rise, eschewing his wig in favor of a hooded cloak that hides his mane. His tattooed eyes are disturbed and he wears a sword on his hip. He feels someone behind him and he turns around quickly, his blade out swift and deadly.  
  
Lilandra doesn't move, allowing the blade to rest against her throat, perfectly aimed so that it doesn't even nick her fragile skin. Had he not perfect control though, she might have suddenly found her shoulders lonesome for her head. "Peace, D'Alken." She says, softly. "I came to ask you if you had eaten breakfast yet, you have been here since the attack."  
  
He lowers his sword and says, grimly, "While my master and mastress were attacked, I was dallying in the arms of giggling chambermaids. I am not hungry."  
  
"Ah, so you are punishing yourself for not being able to see the future." Lilandra nods, wisely, "Yes, you should sleep at the foot of his bed and never have a moment of privacy. That makes for a healthy man."  
  
"I used to do just that." He says, a bitter smile on his lips, made lopsided from the scar on his cheek caused by the shrapnel. "There were times I lay awake all night to hear my master's breath."  
  
"I doubt even Deathbird is so loyal." Lilandra says.  
  
"She believes I am the assassin." D'Alken murmurs, turning away from her, and leaning heavily on the rail. "She doesn't understand that I owe my life to the Majestor."  
  
Lilandra puts her hand on his shoulder, "D'Alken, where is your family? Your real family. Not my brother and sister, but your parents."  
  
The slave shakes his head, dislodging the hood, but not seeming to notice. "I don't know. I was injured somehow, and the Majestor saved my life. I don't remember anything from what came before...except..." His voice drifts away.  
  
"Except?" Lilandra prompts.  
  
His face pales in the dim light of the rising sun, "A burning in my hands and...an explosion..."  
  
Lilandra feels her heart skip a beat and she looks away quickly lest her face show what she is feeling. "I wonder what happened." She says.  
  
"I don't know." He says, distractedly, "Forgive me, My Lady, for not being particularly good company. I am just angry at myself and concerned that there is someone in the palace who is not who they appear to be."  
  
"It is my fault." Lilandra sighs, "My presence is causing problems."  
  
He turns his face sharply towards her. "Your presences could never cause problems, my Lady. Forgive my boldness but you are like something I did not know I was missing until it was found again. Something about you makes me..." his fair, abused face reddens. "I am sorry." He drops the formal speech, and meets her eyes, "I'm sounding like a love sick hatchling. Its just, I don't feel like I belong here when I am with you. I feel like I am far from home and you are my only way back. It makes no sense, but it makes me...uneasy. I feel like you want me to be something and I'm failing at it and it disappoints you. I don't want to disappoint you ever."  
  
Lilandra nearly breaks then. She wants to grab him and tell him everything, sending him home before it is too late and he is used to unwittingly leads her brother to earth, before he is destroyed by what D'Ken would make of him. But fifteen years trapped in a dimension that she should have just been able to pass through had taught her patience.  
  
D'Alken was simply not ready to bet Alex Summers, yet.  
  
She is spared a comment by the arrival of Gladiator, the imperial guardsman's face stern beneath his mohawked plume. "D'Alken, the search is completed. The Majestor requests your presence in the council rooms so we may plan a heightened security routine." If the guard leader feels degraded to be sent as a messenger for a lowly off-worlder's slave, he doesn't show it.  
  
D'Alken looks into Lilandra's eyes, for a second, and then the coldness returns. "You should not be alone, my Lady, it is not yet safe to be unattended."  
  
She bows her head in acknowledgement, "I will find a companion for the day." She promises. Without another word, she goes inside, and returns to her room, her head and her heart full of anxiety. She steps into her chamber, carelessly and discovers she is not alone.  
  
A hand clamps around her mouth and she is pulled back against a strong male form. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" a cold voice with a metallic reverberation growls in her ear.  
  
She knows that voice, "Raza?" she mumbles around the hand over her mouth.  
  
The cyborg spins her around and his wrist is at her throat, an energy blade emerging from his cybernetic appendage. "What game are you playing?" he demands.  
  
Lilandra narrows her eyes, "I don't know what you are talking about." Her gaze is drawn to the blade where it shines in place of a flesh and blood hand. "Put away your weapon, and we will talk like the civilized beings we both are,"  
  
Raza lowers the blade but it stays lit, "You are a foolish woman. You speak treason to the Majestor's lapdog?"  
  
"And, you attack the Majestor's sister in the royal palace." She scoffs, "Who is more the fool?"  
  
The cyborg narrows his eyes, "Do you honestly think the coward Corsair will not run panting to his master to betray you?"  
  
"I am a daughter of House Neramani..."  
  
"All the more reason to suspect you." Raza says, "The human is an informant. Its what he does. Its who he is."  
  
"He is the father of the Majestor's pet." The woman defends, "And he believes if he doesn't cooperate his child will be injured."  
  
Raza's one visible eyes widens, "D'Alken is Corsair's son?"  
  
"The Majestor broke the man by threatening the boy and tamed the boy by erasing all trace of the man." Lilandra says.  
  
The electronic blade goes dark and Raza's bionic hand appears instead. "That is treachery of the highest order of evil."  
  
Lilandra frowns at the words. "You speak ill of your Majestor."  
  
Raza glares at her and says, "D'Ken is Majestor by for not by right. He sets his sights on the universe and ignores the suffering of his people." He holds his cybernetic arm up and says, "This is my reward for years of devoted service. Injured in battle, I was not given the honor of a noble death. Instead, I was modeled into a machine, a tool and given dominion over slaves and ex-patriots."  
  
The woman's elegantly long-fingered hand touches the metal of the prosthesis and says, "You are an anarchist, then. Did you instrument the assassination attempt on his lordship?"  
  
Raza scoffs, "You haven't figured that out yet? Lady Deathbird arranged the attack, to discredit D'Alken and more than likely lead the trail back to you."  
  
"To me? How would..." Lilandra's voice trails off for a moment. "D'Alken is a threat to my sister because of the love my brother has for him, just as I am."  
  
"And D'Alken's love for you implicates you in his downfall." Raza says.  
  
Lilandra shakes her head, "He is not in love with me. His connection with me is not easy to explain, but it is not love. He only thinks it is because he doesn't know what else it could be. How do you know about that at any rate?"  
  
"The mines are not the only place where there are spies." Raza says, quietly," A revolution is coming, one so secret that not even the coward...not even Corsair knows what is happening. All that is missing is a new Majestor to raise in D'Ken's place." He looks at her pointedly, "Or a Majestrix."  
  
Lilandra draws back, "You would make me ruler over you?"  
  
"I heard your words to Corsair. You are the true heir to the throne and you will be a just ruler." Raza says, "Say the word and we will attack."  
  
"Not yet." The woman says.  
  
"The longer we delay, my lady, the more likely it is that the Informant will do his work. Corsair is not to be trusted, particularly if what you say is true. He is likely to tattle like a hatchling all the quicker if he believes your presence endangers D'Alken."  
  
The woman shakes her head, "I have faith that Summers will find his courage. This is a man whose dying act in his home dimension was to bring his family to safety and whose birth here was filled with enough defiance to require my brother to use manipulations of the 'highest order of evil' to humble. This is not a weak man, Raza, no matter what you or he believe."  
  
Raza stares a moment at her and then he says, "The fate of my people lies in the hands of a known mole."  
  
"Faith, Raza." Lilandra says.  
  
He looks at her with a look as hard and cold as ice. "I had faith in my leaders before I was transformed into a metal shell. A machine cannot pray, My Lady. It can only know what it is programmed to know, and I have been trained to know that the human will betray us."

Christopher Summers has never slept well ever. He was a high strung child, too much energy and intelligence to shut his mind off at night. As a young man, his thoughts were of the sky and various crafts that were to carry him through its unknown spaces, As a husband, he sat up at night watching his wife and wondering how he had gotten so lucky. As a father, his nights were spent with first Scottie, then little Alex, calming colicky cries and chasing monsters from under the bed with broomstick weapons.  
  
As a prisoner, there is even less chance to sleep well.  
  
First the terror of the interrogations as D'Ken tried frantically to discover why his gate to earth had failed, then later the humiliation of being made to reveal all he knew to keep his son protected.  
  
Now, there are the constant threats on his life from the other prisoners, who only know his betrayals and have watched as he was rewarded for those treacherous deeds. Corsair has bent knee before D'Ken and meekly allowed the Majestor to give him extra ration and supplies. The captives don't care that the human sneaks the rewards to those who otherwise were destined for the furnaces.  
  
Hepzibah rarely sleeps either. Her people were felinoid in appearance, but they are not the lazy beasts like their domesticated kin. She shares Corsair's separated bunk house, watching while he sleeps fitfully, comforting him when he lays awake. She knows his pain, though she had never know what caused it, and it had often made her wonder at the courage it took for him not to give up. The little bird had met with him and the things she had said made him upset.  
  
She does not like Corsair upset.  
  
She owed her life to him. He had saved her from men who would have hurt her, demanding the only thing he had ever dared from D'Ken, that the young kitten be allowed to remain his companion. The Majestor allowed it, finding it amusing that the human would rut with what the Shi'ar considered lowly beasts.  
  
Corsair never touched Hepzibah as a lover, though it was plain he did indeed see her as one. When she asked once why it was, he had answered, "You serve a man, Hepzibah, not a soulless carcass."  
  
He watches her stalk about the room tonight, checking as is her practice for those who might wish her beloved harm. Corsair's eyes are filled with something more than weary sorrow. "Hepzibah, come sit by me." He urges.  
  
She hurries to do so and purrs when he strokes her head with unaccustomed affection. "Corsair..." she murmurs.  
  
He brings his lips close to her ear, "I am going to the palace, my love, and no matter what you hear about me, or what they tell you is true, you must trust that I will be back for you."  
  
She turns her head, "Corsair, what are you going to do?" she asks, warily.  
  
"I am going to reveal to my master the treachery of his sister." Corsair says, rising, "I am going to bring Lilandra's rebellion to light."  
  
Hepzibah rises too, "I will go with you."  
  
Corsair shakes his head, "No, you must stay here. I don't want you with me, Cat. You will only get in my way."  
  
She is stung by the bluntness of his words, "Corsair."  
  
"This is the last insurrection my master will ever have to crush." He looks at her with naked maliciousness in his eyes. "Lady Lilandra opened my eyes. This is not my world and it is using me up. If I don't look out for my own interests, there will be nothing left of me. My son is not safe if cooperate or if I rebel, so I will make my own decisions from now on, and do what pleases me." Without another world, he storms away.  
  
Hepzibah waits until his smell has faced before she steps into the darkness. She is a soft white and orange ghost as she moves through the work camp. Passing one of the barracks, she exudes a signal of pheromones and slips further into the night.  
  
"He hassss gone, hasssn't he?" hisses a voice, "To D'Ken?"  
  
Hepzibah narrows her eyes, as the tall creature emerges into her line of vision, "He has, Ch'od."  
  
Ch'od, a reptoid, bulky and scaled, with fanged jaws, yellow slit eyes and a row of spikes down his spine, makes a low noise in his throat. "We knew he wassss weak."  
  
The cat's tail cracks in anger like a whip, almost as if she has no control, so enraged is she, "He is not weak."  
  
"No? Then why issss he getting ussss killed." Ch'od snaps. "Tonight, we musssst sssstrike before he betraysss usss all." 


	10. Intrigue

The web of palace intrigue has grown tangled. D'Ken seeking conquest of worlds and men, Deathbird seeking to cement her place, Lilandra seeking peace, Raza freedom, Corsair resolution.  
  
And the young man in the center of this many patterned tapestry does not even realize he is the thread that will unravel it all. Alex Summers, D'Alken, only wishes to serve his master and to fulfill his role in this life the best way he could. He has no mind for the crafts and machination that plague those around him.  
  
He just simply wants to live in the ignorantly blissful existence that a seven year old boy had fled into to protect himself from a tragedy that he had not been able to prevent, that he had helped to cause...  
  
...though he doesn't remember that at all.  
  
Annie has been Alex's nurse for five years now, but this is all highly unusual. She frowns at Dr. Abdol, "I don't understand what is going on in here." She says, hands on her hips, "Who is this woman and why is she sleeping on Alex's bed?" She nods down at the still unconscious Dr. Lillian Andrews.  
  
"She is in telepathic communication with Alex." Abdol answers.  
  
"What?" Annie frowns, peering at the sleeping woman critically, "Telepathic...looks like she is just sleeping to me."  
  
Abdol glares at the nurse, "She is a doctor, not that you have any place to ask."  
  
The nurse sniffs rudely at the doctor and begins to move Alex around on the bed to make him more comfortable. "You may be his doctor, but 'Lexxy is _my_ patient more than he is your. You only see him when he is in an ambulatory phase. I am the one who cares for him when he is not." She looks over at Kathy, standing out of the way, knowing the routine after so long a time. "Mrs. Summers is the only one in the entire world who loves Alexander more than I do, so if I am protective, learn to live with it. I don't plan on changing."  
  
Kathy smiles at the nurse and thinks that she is the kind of woman she would've liked for Alex to marry someday. Maybe if this works..."I appreciate your concern, Annie, and I am sure Alex does as well."  
  
Annie beams in pleasure, "He is rarely any trouble." She says, her professional hands hooking the draining device to the monitor on Alex's collar. "But whatever you are doing here, it is starting to upset him. Poor thing's power levels are spiking horribly. She brushes her fingers across the crease on his cheek, "How did he get hurt? Did he fall?"  
  
Abdol shoos the nurse away from the bed, "That's enough, Nurse. Now I am certain you have other patients to attend to."  
  
Annie harumphs in disrespect and looks at Kathy, "Mrs. Summers, if you need me, I will be around." She checks the monitor one last time, and, satisfied that the drain is reducing the level of Alex's untrained powers, she leaves.  
  
The doctor and the mother continue their silent vigil, waiting for a sign from woman or man that Alex will soon be coming home.

The night is cool, cooler than Lilandra likes. In the earth dimension, she'd hidden her Shi'ar differences much like D'Alken hid his human ones here. Wigs, carefully chosen clothing, make-up. But she was still of an avian race which desired warm climes. The cold makes her think of dark things, death and betrayals and of whatever is about to befall the empire.  
  
Was her brother evil? Or simply power mad? By legality the throne was his, as she, the eldest and the born heir, having been presumed dead at the time of their father's demise. But Raza had been right. She had spent time after his visit traveling over the city, and the people were not happy. All men or age were involved in the business of making war, and though the women had slightly more freedom, it was obviously "encouraged" that they too enlist. The entire population of Chandilar seemed to focus entirely on conquest, ignoring that their home world was crumbling beneath their feet.  
  
She would be a better ruler than this.  
  
It seems suddenly more urgent to get Alex home. As long as he remains, D'Ken has the power over Corsair. If Corsair was bound, the revolution was doomed to failure. Without the rebellion, D'Ken would never be overthrown.  
  
A circular puzzle where the center piece was the boy who had been plucked from a burning jet fifteen long years ago. 


	11. Murder

D'Alken is in his room, sleeping soundly alone in his bed. There are no soft girls in his arms tonight, and, he is dressed in a slick suit, rather than the rather insubstantial night clothes he normally favors. He moans softly in his dreams, a lost and unhappy sound. When he is asleep, he is close to the world that he doesn't remember or have the desire to return to, but when he is prevented from opening his eyes in his home dimension, prevented by fear and training and trauma.  
  
As had happened one room over the previous night, a panel slides open, and a shadow steps from the secret passageway, a necessity in every palace built by paranoid men who have taken their dominion by force. This was meant for the Majestor to have an escape route in case of danger. Last night, its purpose was twisted to allow that danger in.  
  
Tonight, it puts the Majestor's favorite, his toy, his pet, his trained servant, in danger. D'Ken had originally thought he would use the little boy yanked from the earth dimension only to control the father, but he had grown fond of the child. He adored his wife but Deathbird was an evolutionary throwback. He would never have a family with her. What sort of hatchlings would they have? Winged children? The disgrace.  
  
He couldn't raise D'Alken to be Majestor, the Shi'ar would never allow an off-worlder to be their emperor. But the boy had proven to be amusing and remarkably pliable. He was a good servant and a good soldier, taking every order like he was born to it. There is something inside the boy that had shown in his father before he was so forcefully broken to D'Ken's will. D'Alken has some of Corsair's spirit, even if he never knew it.  
  
Which is why when the shadowy figure slowly approaches the slave's bed, he suddenly finds D'Alken's sword at his throat, the human having feigned his slumber.  
  
"Move and your head is mine." D'Alken says, quiet and malicious. He turns on the light and is startled at who stands poised to kill him. "Oh, my god..." he mutters.  
  
Gladiator smirks, "You are quick, Slave."  
  
D'Alken gets out of bed, the sword point never dipping from Gladiator's throat. "Why are you trying to kill me? Why did you try to kill the Majestor?"  
  
"Your Majestor took the throne by force, he should expect treachery because of that." Gladiator spits.  
  
"Who would you have raised in his place?" D'Alken frowns. "Who should be ruler? Lady Lilandra?"  
  
The guardsman smirks, "Of course, it should be Lilandra. She is eldest, she was next in line to be Majestrix. But she is not the reason I am here...not entirely."  
  
D'Alken presses with the sword, so that the tip dimples the guard's flesh, drawing a line of blood. "Quit talking in riddles, Gladiator. Tell me who sent you before I kill you or call the Majestor and allow him the privilege."  
  
Gladiator straightens his shoulders and says, "Why should I answer to a slave? An off-world mono-dimensional toy chosen by the whim of a bored tyrant? He cares too much for you, 'Property' and it has given you the belief that you are superior to us. He neglects his true people in favor of you and his overwhelming obsession to own the reality of your birth. When he has drained every last bit of use from you and learned what secret it is you carry within you that protects your world from his machinations, you will be tossed aside like your pathetic coward of a father, creeping and crawling through the mines with his little odds and ends of information like we would not have learned about each and every impending rebellion without his help."  
  
D'Alken takes a step backwards, "What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
Gladiator laughs, "What? You thought he was fond of you? You thought he loved you? Maybe in a way, like a man might love an amusing pet. But you are still just a possession, just a toy. And, it makes my people angry that he would neglect us in favor of you. I am just one of many who will not miss you when the Majestor throws you to Alisbor."  
  
"That is not true." D'Alken growls. He is growing angry. His hands tighten around the hilt of his sword, "I have never tried to take the place of the people of my Master. I just want to serve him as best I can."  
  
"Noble, foolish D'Alken." The guard mocks, "Just like your father used to be before he was broken."  
  
The sword has begun to tremble in the young man's hands, "I don't know my father. I have none."  
  
"Your father is a coward, little hatchling, who begs for attention and is fed scraps of the Majestor's charity." Gladiator says, taking a step forward. "Maybe once he was worth something, but he is a skeleton now, just bones and despair. D'Ken tried to make him betray his world, to tell him what it was that destroyed the gate, but he didn't know. Perhaps you do, perhaps the good servant will know what his useless father didn't. Then you will lead the armies to earth and we will conquer it."  
  
D'Alken shakes his head, his blond fur tied into a thin braid that cracks like a whip. "You are still talking nonsense." Pain in his head, pain in his arms and hands. What is going on here?  
  
"And when earth is at last ours, there will be no more need for the precious little manservant or his broken down daddy..."  
  
And, something, something he cannot control even had he wanted to forces his way out of D'Alken. He does not know where it has come from or what causes it to come out now, but this last taunt about the father he doesn't even remember is more than he can bear. With a cry of rage and fear and pain, the young man slams out his free hand and rings of golden power explode from his palm.  
  
Gladiator is thrown across the room, with the strength of it, smashing through the wall that separates the rooms, and crashing into a heap in the middle of the Majestor's chambers. D'Ken and Deathbird are awake and on their feet in an instant.  
  
"Gladiator!" Deathbird cries!  
  
D'Alken steps through the hole in the wall, his eyes wide and horror filled, the power gone from him as quickly as it had come. "Oh, my god..." he murmurs, stunned. He looks at his hand as if it is a poisonous snake. "What have I done?"  
  
D'Ken crouches over the fallen guard, "He is alive, but just barely. D'Alken, what did you do? How did you do that?"  
  
The slave shakes his head, "I don't know. I don't know what happened."  
  
"I know!" Deathbird snaps, kneeling beside Gladiator, "I set Gladiator to watch us, tonight. I don't trust guards commanded by someone not of my race! I was right to suspect! Obviously, D'Alken was trying to murder us and this is how he dealt with out good and loyal guard."  
  
"That's a lie!" D'Alken snaps, boldly, "Gladiator tried to kill me. He came into my room spouting gibberish about my _father_ and the earth dimension."  
  
D'Ken stands up, "What did he say?"  
  
"That my father was a fool and a coward and that you will use me like you used him up once I reveal the secret to conquering earth." D'Alken says, "he made me angry and I exploded...I didn't mean to."  
  
"Exploded." D'Ken gasps, "It was you. You blew the gate."  
  
"Master, what are you talking about?" D'Alken frowns.  
  
"You don't remember. Of course, you don't." D'Ken says, his eyes unfocusing and seeing something that happened a long time ago and something that has not yet happened, merging into one glorious image of conquest. "You are the key to unlocking that world, boy."  
  
D'Alken takes a frightened step away from his master, "What are you saying?"  
  
"I am saying you will make me the most powerful man in all of the dimensions." The Majestor says, ravenous lust in his eyes. "At last this will all be finished."  
  
Suddenly, the Majestor's shirt tents out peculiarly. A blade emerges from his chest, spilling his blood in a scarlet geyser. He falls to the ground, eyes sightless.  
  
"It is finished now!" Deathbird growls, yanking the dagger out of her brother/husband's back and striking out again, this time driving the blade into her own stomach, much to D'Alken's horror. "Help!" she cries, "Murder! Treachery!" She sinks to her knees.  
  
"No..." D'Alken gasps, as the guardsman begin to pound on the outer door, already alerted by the explosion. "No, no!"  
  
He turns and runs, sliding into the secret passage that Gladiator had used to enter his room. He has no idea where he is going, but he knows he cannot stay here.


	12. Birdsong

At the sound of the alarms, Dr. Abdol gets to his feet, and begins to frantically check the device to check on Alex's drain. "His power levels are elevating."  
  
Kathy stands up. She hurries to her son's side and frowns. His face is flushed and dotted with sweat. She looks at Dr. Andrews and the woman has grown pale and strangely...insubstantial, like she is fading away or something. "What is going on?" she whispers.  
  
"He's responding badly. The drain isn't pulling his powers back fast enough." Abdol frowns, uneasily, "I have to wake Andrews up. I'm calling an end to this now."  
  
Kathy strokes her son's torn cheek. "Alex, what's happening? What's happening to you?"  
  
Alex's eyelid's flutter though they don't open fully and he moans, softly at his mother's touch. His lips part and he groans a word. "Corsair..."  
  
Kathy gasps, and she grabs Abdol's arm, stopping him as he bends over Andrews to shake her awake. "No, no wait."  
  
"Kathy, we don't really have the time. Alex's powers..."  
  
"He spoke, Doctor, he spoke. He hasn't said a word since he was seven." The woman says, intently. She had not had much faith in this experiment, but so much was happening, so much.  
  
Abdol frowns, "Kathy..."  
  
"He said his father's name, his call sign. This wasn't a random thought, something meaningless." She looks down at her son, "Please, please, this is the first real sign that he is in there, Doctor. A few more minutes..."  
  
Abdol returns to the drain and puts it to its highest setting. "When the monitor gets into the red, Kathy, I am pulling the switch on this. I will not risk this hospital for one man, not even Alex."  
  
Kathy sits besides Alex, and bends down, forehead to forehead. "Please, 'Lexxy, please, my baby. Wake up, wake up for me."  
  
Alex Summers opens his mouth and the sound that comes from his lips sounds like nothing more than the song of a bird.

Corsair stands before the royal palace of the Majestor, less a castle like his earth-educated mind would predict. It is a something that is part fairy tail, part sci-fi movie, part indescribable in its...alienness. He feels sick to his stomach, sick at what he is about to do. This is where he decides finally who he is going to be on this world. The Lady Lilandra had made it clear. He was dead in his own reality. He would never return home.  
  
That is a strangely liberating feeling, knowing that. Christopher Summers had been dead for years, his mind just hadn't realized that fact.  
  
So, he was free to be Corsair, which meant he had to make this choice.  
  
He approaches the guard who stand at the "castle gates" and humbles himself before them, the sick feeling growing. "I have news for the Majestor, news of treason."  
  
That's when the explosion rattles the palace, and golden light fills the windows on one side.  
  
The guards spin around and one manages, "Your news might come to late, Slave." They run into the palace.  
  
Corsair looks at the fading light, that left ring shaped after images in his mind. "I know that light." He says. He breaks into a run, following the guards. He doesn't completely remember where he knows it from, but he has a sinking feeling that he will soon find out. 


	13. Revolution

Lilandra is awakened by the explosion and the commotion, and she is on her feet in an instant. "No." she moans, "Not yet."  
  
Pulling on her robe, she hurries to the door and throws it open. Guards are rushing past her room, frantically, scurrying frightened servants going the other direction. One of the guards pauses long enough to order, concernedly, "Close and lock your door, Your Ladyship, someone has attacked the Majestor."  
  
She shuts the door, quickly, and begins to get dressed, quickly. She has no intention on staying in this room, but she is not going to go about half dressed. She dons her silver armor, tucking her helmet under her arm. She grabs the sword out of its case and cries out, as she catches sight of the reflection behind her.  
  
She spins around and D'Alken holds out his hands, "No, don't!" he pleads, "I am not going to hurt you."  
  
"I know." She says, lowering her sword, "What is happening?"  
  
He shakes his head, wisps of his blond hair escaped from his braid and plastered to his face with sweat. "I don't know, Lilandra." He says, too confused to think of the formal address at the moment. "Gladiator attacked me. I... something happened, and I...my master...Lady Deathbird ran him through. She is going to blame me." He lowers his head, "I ran. Instead of trying to help him, I ran..."  
  
Lilandra's eyes narrow, "Deathbird. She is the one. She staged the attack on herself last night to discredit you."  
  
D'Alken looks stricken, "But why? What have I ever done? Gladiator told me things that make no sense. About...Earth and my...my father..."  
  
"Corsair the Informer." Lilandra says.  
  
His eyes widen, "You know? That's what he told me, but it isn't true...is it? Am I...am I really the key to destroying Earth?"  
  
Lilandra is afraid to answer, but she nods her head, slowly, "I searched that reality looking for a way home. I found it in the mind of a young man, catatonic and trapped dimensions away from home. In his stupor, his consciousness took my hand, and I opened my eyes holding yours as you helped me from my ship. D'Alken, you are Alex Summers, of Earth. Fifteen years ago, my brother sent me to sample Earth to discover which dimension it lay in the most firmly so we could conquer it. The gateway was damaged by an explosion that until now we thought came from the planet itself."  
  
D'Alken looks at his hands, "It came from me. No, that's impossible. This is wrong...wrong."  
  
Lilandra comes close and takes his hands in hers, "Alex..."  
  
"Don't call me that." He snaps, pulling away, "And, don't touch me. I am a freak."  
  
"I call you that because that's who you are." Lilandra insists, "That is you are, and it is who you have to be again. You can't stay here, not now, especially not now."  
  
He looks at her and his eyes are like steel, "Oh, can't I? When Earth is given to my Master he will know that I am loyal. He will know that I am the only loyal member of his house. I don't belong there. I am D'Alken of the House Neramani and I am the Chosen of the Majestor."  
  
The door is suddenly opened and Corsair stands there, his sword at the ready, "Then, you will precede him into Hell." He spits.  
  
"Corsair!" Lilandra asks, "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I came to kill D'Ken and rescue my son." Corsair says, grimly, "But I find that one has already been dead and the other is lost."  
  
Lilandra shakes her head, "Corsair, it is not safe here for you. Raza warned me about you. He thinks you are going to betray us all to D'Ken."  
  
Corsair smirks, "Does he now? What do I care about what that metal plated moron thinks? He's an Insurrectionist, is he? He must be good if I never heard of his plans."  
  
"And, no one else will hear of it either!" Raza snaps, stepping through the door. A blast comes from the stunner on his wrist, and Corsair falls. He holds a communicator to his lips and says, in his strict metal voice, "Ch'od, Hepzibah! Now, Corsair is down, D'Ken is dead! The time of uprising has begun."

The revolution in the mines was not supposed to have come, yet, but Raza had found his opportunity. Those who had been contacted secretly, via a communication system so intricate that even the devious coward Corsair had been unaware of their existence, had been ready for the signal. Raza had spread word, long ago, that it was only their lack of palace support that prevented their striking. A figurehead was needed, and who could have ever guessed that it was the true Majestrix.  
  
Lilandra's arrival was timely, and convenient. Almost too convenient.  
  
But then, she had been gone for fifteen long years according to the way the time was measured on the world that had held her prisoner. She had not been biding her time. She had been fighting to find a way home.  
  
She was the one who would free the Empire from this endless cycle of conquest and destruction. D'Ken had never grasped the concept that there was more to the act of invasion and occupation then the annihilation of the enemy. His father had understood. He had incorporated the worlds he had taken, had almost adopted them into the empire. They had been taken by force, but they were not obliterated. They were consumed into the mass of the Shi'ar Empire, taken under the care of the Majestor like lost sheep found by a shepherd.  
  
D'Ken had done none of those things. Under him the taken planets had been destroyed, lost to his ineptitude. Ignorant and greedy, he had lost interest in the planets once they were his, simply moving on to another and another. His people suffered beneath his negligence and those who dared to complain filled the mines...or worse...  
  
The men and woman who followed Raza accepted the command of Ch'od to rise up, and though they had no proof that Lilandra would be any different then her brother, how could she be any worse? This was their only chance.   
  
They rose up spirits that were assumed broken and bodies that were supposed to be too weak to fight. The guards had been overwhelmed easily, and the prisoners had taken their revenge.  
  
But there is one heart amongst the Insurrectionists that is not full of joy.  
  
Hepzibah, slunk in an half crouch on an outcropping watching the slaves overthrow their masters, mourns.  
  
A green scaled hand catches the stone and Ch'od swings himself up beside her. "You are thinking of him, are you not?" he asks, looking at her with cold yellow eyes.  
  
She nods slowly, her tail swishing slowly behind her, "I will never believe he was an evil man."  
  
Ch'od, who had lost friends to the betrayals of the human known as Corsair, sighs, deeply. "Maybe he wasss not evil, Little Cat. Maybe he wasss jussst weak."  
  
"And so he deserves death?" Hepzibah asks, "I wonder if he could not have been spared."  
  
"Your people and mine are exxxtinct becaussse of what he sssspoke to the Shi'ar." Ch'od growls, "Informant. Collaborator. He issss lucky he died quickly. There are thosssse not asss forgiving asss usss."  
  
Hepzibah lowers her eyes, sadly, "He saved my life. Doesn't that count for anything?"  
  
Ch'od shrugs, "Maybe he got the sssatisssfaction of dying knowing he did one good thing with hisss life." He touches the cat's face with his scaled hand and he says, "He wasss not the one you should have had, Ssssweet, Hepzzzibah."  
  
He swings himself off the rock and back into battle.  
  
Hepzibah stays where she is for a moment and remembers Corsair as he had been with her, when he sometimes forgot that he had become something unworthy. She remembers the strength he had had when he rescued her from those who would have done things that would have driven her mad. He had grabbed them, and for a moment she had feared that he was one of them, so furious had he been. But he had comforted her, had tended her wounds, and treated her with such kindness.  
  
He promised to come back for her. He warned her what they would say.  
  
She will keep her faith.


	14. Explosion

D'Alken watches Corsair fall and it means nothing to him, this man who claims to be his father. His attack means less to him than the attack on D'Ken, the man who _had_ been his father for the past fifteen years. Was he evil or a tyrant, it didn't matter. D'Alken was his, his chosen, his favorite. Someone had wanted him and taken care of him when everyone else had gone. There is an emptiness, a missing piece now that his master is dead. His life had been based on the Majestor.  
  
He would avenge D'Ken's death. His Mastress had betrayed them both, but he would not give the Empire to Lilandra who spoke such treasons about the Majestor. Rage builds in him, that same burning pain in his hands that had made the world explode.  
  
Explode...golden rings, golden rings of power in his hands and his eyes and his mind...where did they come from, when had they first destroyed...his life...  
  
Raza's wrist prosthesis lights with his sword, and it is against D'Alken's throat. "Whatever you are doing, Slave, stop it." He growls, "Or I drop you like I dropped your daddy."  
  
D'Alken, his eyes shimmering with that strange light, recoils. He looks feverishly down at Corsair. "I...he's not my father. I am the Chosen of the Majestor..."  
  
"He used you, Alex, and he would keep using you to control your father. You are a pawn and nothing more than the key to a world that has obsessed him since it defeated him once." Lilandra pleads, putting her hand on Raza's arm, "No, leave him, Raza, don't hurt him.  
  
The cyborg glares at the slave, "I saw what he did to Gladiator, My Lady. This human has powers. You don't understand."  
  
"I do understand." Lilandra says, firmly, "Because I have seen his powers. He is the reason I was trapped on Earth for fifteen years."

_Alex swings his feet, bored. He has been miserable for the past two weeks, spending time with Grandpa and Grandma. Their house is too hot and smelly and have no idea how to deal with a hyperactive seven-year-old with enough energy in him to power a small city it seemed. They were much more fond of Scotty, Alex's big brother. He's twelve and smarter and better. He doesn't run around and break things, he doesn't talk to loud, he doesn't cause havoc wherever he goes.  
  
Scotty is everyone's favorite.  
  
The little boy looks up at his brother, sitting in the co-pilot's seat of their dad's small private plane. Scott's face is tight and focused as he listens to his father's careful instructions.  
  
"I'm bored!" Alex announces, just to break the peace.  
  
"Hush, 'Lexxy." His mother urges, "Why don't you read your book?" She hands him his book, a colorful picture book about geology. Alex likes it, likes pictures of the rocks.  
  
Alex drops it on the floor. "I don't want to read. I want to learn how to fly. If Scotty can, so can I."  
  
Scott looks back at his little brother, his brown eyes filled with childish maliciousness. "You are too little." He proclaims, "You are just a little kid with rocks in your head."  
  
"Scott!" Christopher Summers scolds, putting his hand on his oldest son's arm, "Pay attention. If you are more interested in teasing your brother, you can go back and join him."  
  
"No, Dad." Scott says, quickly looking back at what he should be looking at. "Sorry, Sir."  
  
Chris looks over his shoulder at little Alex and smiles, "Someday, 'Lexxy. You'll be big enough." He winks at the boy.  
  
Alex smiles at his dad, brightly. Christopher is smart enough to give his attention fairly, He is a good father who knows how to deal with both his sons. The seven year old doesn't know any of the machinations that parenthood brings. He just knows his daddy loves him and that makes him happy. He comes over to the front of the plane and leans on his dad's seat arm, "Are we there yet?"  
  
Chris ruffles his son's hair, blond like his mother, just like Scott was a brunette like his father. One child for each, "Not yet, Champ."  
  
"Soon?" Alex asks, allowing the gentle man-handling with a child's tolerance for adult affection.  
  
"Go sit down." Scott orders, his eyes narrowed, "Mom, tell the baby to leave us alone." He is trying very hard to concentrate on this, and he is not as sure about his ability to do it as he pretended. This is a lot of responsibility.  
  
"Come on, 'Lexxy, and keep a lonely old lady company." Kathy says, holding out her arms for a hug.  
  
Alex obediently snuggles up to her, "You aren't an old lady. You're Mom." He says, lovingly.  
  
"When we get home though I'll take care of Mom's loneliness." Christopher calls back, cheekily. They have spent two weeks in Alaska with his parents. They haven't had much alone time. They were going to try to give the boys a sister. They had been planning this for some time. It would be good for the boys, especially Alex.  
  
Kathy smiles, "Behave, Major Summers."  
  
"Yes, Ma'am." Christopher salutes.  
  
Alex frees himself from his mother's grip, disgusted by the mush talk. He wanders over to his chair and picks up a toy abandoned at the bottom of the plane. A robot that Scott had built from broken toys. He had rewired a remote control car and made something pretty cool. One of Scott's many talents.  
  
His little brother climbs up in his seat and looks at the robot. He can't do stuff like this. He can't do stuff like this. He can't do any of the stuff Scott can do. He's just plain better. Alex just wants something to make him special.  
  
He has something in him that wants to come out. He wants to be the favorite, just once.  
  
The plane suddenly bounces and Alex drops the robot. "Hey." He protests.  
  
Christopher turns to Scott to correct something, but his eyes widen as they skim past the windshield. "Kathy." He calls, in a purposely bland voice, "Come up here, please. Scotty, Kiddo, go back and sit with your brother. Make sure you are both buckled up."  
  
Scott is going to protest, but something in his dad's voice prevents it. "Yes, sir." He says, slipping out of the chair and letting his mom take his place. He sits next to Alex. "Buckle up." He orders.  
  
"You aren't my boss." Alex says.  
  
"Alex, buckle up." Kathy says, firmly.  
  
Scott leans over and buckles his brother's belt. "Quit being a brat." He scolds, "Something is up."  
  
Christopher is looking out of the window, anxiously, "What was that? Look!" he points, "Do you see that?"  
  
Kathy cranes her neck to see the silver shape sliding smoothly above them. "What is that? Is that a military craft?"  
  
Chris shakes his head, "Not our military." He says, and he would, of course, know. He has tested military craft for nearly twenty years and that was like nothing he had ever seen. He flips on his radio, "Attention, this is...Damn. Hello? Hello?" He flips the switch several times, ", the radio is dead."  
  
"Chris, change course." Kathy says, quietly. "Land or something. I don't like this."  
  
Alex leans forward to see better. "What is it? Can you see it?"  
  
"'Lexxy, shhhh." Scott urges and there is something in his face that shuts the smaller boy up.   
  
Christopher continues to try and get the radio working "I'm going to try and...  
  
Light suddenly blasts into the plane, blinding Chris and Kathy. They throw their arms over their eyes, crying out. The plane starts to shudder.  
  
Scott and Alex yell out, in fear, and their sibling rivalry forgotten for the moment, the older boy wraps his arms around his little brother to protect him.  
  
Alex stares at the yellow light and he feels it building in him, that something painful burning in his bones. His arms fly out as if to embrace the strange alien light. Scott looks into his brother's face, horrified. As if reflecting the light back at their attacker, Alex's eyes are glowing yellow. The little boy pushes and the light thrusts itself harmlessly through his brother and slams in rings across the short length of the fuselage, blowing out the windscreen.  
  
Chris and Kathy are hurled against the instrument panel by the force of whatever it is Alex has unleashed, and are held their by the vacuum. There is an explosion outside the plane their attacker, hit by the energy released by the mutant child. The yellow light stutters, splashing over the four terrified samples like it is playing some strange game of chance.  
  
It slams into the consciousnesses of the oldest and the youngest of the group and, with the last vestiges of intensity, yanks at their psyches and their souls, ripping them violently from their dimension.  
  
Christopher Summers, struggling mightily against the abduction manages to hold on long enough to feel the strange power from his son cut off like a switch had been flipped. Moving as if in a dream, unable to respond to his wife's urgent cries, he focuses all his attention on making his hands do what he needed to do to land the damaged plane. Smoke is filling the cabin now, as the engines catch fire from whatever the alien craft had fired at them. The man doesn't feel the tightness in his lungs, or the convulsing of the ship. He is only able to see the controls, to land the plane, land the plane, land the plane...  
  
Behind him, Scott cradles his equally unresponsive brother, whispering his name through choking tears. Alex stares straight ahead, his eyes no longer seeing anything in this world.  
  
As the father of the stolen boy brings the plane to a bone shattering, screaming crash landing on a blessedly lightly trafficked stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, he gives himself up to the pull of the dimensional rupture and joins his son...elsewhere.  
  
The last thing he sees of this world is a damaged silver craft spiraling out of sight._

_Alex sees none of this, opening his eyes and finding himself in a tube made of glass. He cries out and pounds on it, and in his fear tries to summon whatever power is was that had exploded within him, but he doesn't know how. He collapse to his knees and leaves bloodied hand prints on the glass.  
  
A face is thrust against the glass, oddly marked, with hair like feathers. It sings a bird song from what looks like normal lips and seems puzzled when Alex wails in fear. Another face joins it and switches a machine on, light bores into the boy's head and the birdsong suddenly becomes words.  
  
"What did you do to my sister's ship?" the man says.  
  
Alex sobs, "I want my daddy."  
  
The light pulsates and the pain in his skull drives him to his knees.  
  
"What did you do to my sister's ship?" the man demands.  
  
Alex can't answer. He cowers before the man and sobs into his hands, frightened.  
  
The man stares at the child and says, "You are just a hatchling, aren't you? Somehow she sent me an infant. Raise the tube."  
  
"Lord D'Ken..." the other alien says, warningly.  
  
"Do as I command." The one called D'Ken says, in a cold tone. The tube is raised. Alex doesn't move. He is curled in a ball on the floor, weeping. D'Ken crouches beside him, "Little Hatchling." He croons, "What are you doing in my sample? You are useless to me, useless."  
  
Alex risks a peek at him, calmed by the soft song, "Where is my daddy?"  
  
"Lord, the other tube..." the other alien says. He his head and Alex sees his father collapsed in another tube. He scrambles to his feet.  
  
"Daddy!"  
  
D'Ken clamps a hand on the boy's arm, "No, hatchling, your father owes me. He did something to my sister and he will pay for it."  
  
Christopher Summers opens his eyes, and sees his boy in the hands of someone who is not human. "What is happening?" The light scans his brain, like it had his son's and he can understand D'Ken's words.  
  
"I ask the questions, Earther." The alien says, "I am Lord D'Ken of the Shi'ar Empire, and you are my prisoner."  
  
"Release my son." Chris says.  
  
D'Ken strokes the hatchling's head. "Or what? You will pound on the glass at me?"  
  
A blast of pain courses through Christopher and he cries out.  
  
"No!" Alex says, "No! Don't hurt my daddy!"  
  
D'Ken tightens his grip, "Earther, you and your boy are mine, and you will do what I say or you will both die."  
  
"Just don't hurt, Alex. Don't hurt him and I will do what you say." Christopher says.  
  
D'Ken looks down at the little boy, "And, you, Hatchling, what will you give me to protect your father?"  
  
"I don't know." Alex says, quietly.  
  
D'Ken smiles. "You don't have to answer, yet. I will find a use for you." He turns to the other alien, "Find out from the Earther what happened to my sister's ship and continue the search. Contact Chandilar, notify the Majestor what has happened. He will want to know about Lilandra." He takes the boy's hand, "Come with me, Hatchling."  
  
The boy is lead away and the questioning of his father begins.  
  
It is a week before they are called back to Chandilar, the throne world. News of his favorite child's death has killed the Majestor. D'Ken must assume his father's throne.  
  
The Earther who has had his name removed and has been dubbed Corsair for the brightly colored tattoo on his shoulder, can reveal nothing. He claims to not know why Lilandra's ship had blown up. And truth be told, he didn't know. He had been blinded by the light of the dimensional rupture and had not seen his son unleash his powers.  
  
Alex, now called D'Alken, has begun to forget what he had done. The fear and the guilt has begun to overwhelm him and by the time they reach his master's home world, he has almost no memory of Earth at all.  
  
He is only seven.  
  
He didn't know how else to survive.  
  
He doesn't realize he is just a pawn in D'Ken's game._


	15. Chaos

The alarms on Alex's drain blare their warning. Even at its highest setting, it is not able to keep up with the steady rise in his powers. They are filling him, too quickly. His body temperature is rising as well, which is a normal side effect of his powers considering the amount of energy he generates. He can normally be cooled down by the drain, or even simply giving him Tylenol. But his fever is a wildfire, and he needs to be cooled down immediately. Annie has brought in a cooling blanket and it is keeping his brain from frying, but there is no longer a choice.  
  
This has to end, but there is a new problem. Dr. Abdol leans over Dr. Andrews and cannot wake the woman up. She has grown pale and cold, her skin clammy and her body even less responsive than Alex's. But she isn't reacting at all to anything he does to rouse her. He is not a telepath, and can't exactly understand how Lillian Andrews has connected her mind to Alex Summers, so he has no idea how to disconnect the two.  
  
Alex's eyes have sprung open and he stares up at the ceiling, his rapidly darting pupils seeing nothing. Kathy, sponging sweat off his face, ignores the doctor's attempt to wake the woman. She leans over her son, whispering, "Come on, Baby, come on. Try or you are never going to be able to come home."  
  
The bird song trill is his answer to her, a language that is not a language.  
  
Annie has reappeared, and is hooking an iv to her patient's arm, "It's ok, 'Lexxy." She croons as she works "I'm here. No one's going to hurt while Annie's around." She mimics a phrase or two of the bird song and that works a little, calming him enough that she can insert the iv.  
  
"What is that?" Kathy asks the nurse.  
  
"A sedative." Annie answers. "It will relax him and hopefully calm his powers down."  
  
"No." Kathy says, putting out her hand. "Don't. I don't want him drugged."  
  
Abdol frowns up at her, and says, "Kathy, please."  
  
"He is my son." Kathy says, firmly, "I decide what is best for him." She points at the ceiling, "You installed that thing, use it."  
  
The doctor looks like he is going to protest, his dark eyes furious. But a fresh blast of alarm from Alex's drain halts whatever he was going to say. He looks at Annie, "Go have security open the skylight, quickly."  
  
"But, Doctor..." Annie gasps, "You aren't just going to let..."  
  
"Do as I say, Nurse." Abdol says, his thick Egyptian accent almost unintelligible, "You weren't here before. You don't know what kind of havoc his powers cause."  
  
Annie, frightened by the tone of his voice, and furious at Mrs. Summers for being so stubborn, hurries off to the security desk.  
  
Abdol turns to the woman still cradling her son, "He is going to fire his powers, Kathy. And they might not focus through his hands. They don't always. Sometimes the explode around him."  
  
"Wake Andrews." Kathy says, "She's the only one who can tell us what is happening."  
  
The doctor leans over the elegant figure sprawled over the bed, "I can't. She won't wake up. Don't you think I have been trying?"  
  
Kathy looks down at her son, who stares up at her but doesn't see her. "He is somewhere. I thought he was gone, but she woke something up in him. He is reacting, just not to us..."  
  
"To what then?"  
  
"To whatever is happening to him wherever he is." Kathy says.  
  
"Kathy, you may be doing him more harm than good by persisting with this." Abdol says, "You might kill him."  
  
She looks at the doctor, "Dead or alive, Doctor. Either one _must_ be better than this walking death. I didn't know he was in there before. I was selfish. I wanted him alive because he's all I have left. His father is dead, and his brother...Scott is a busy man, an important man. Alex was all that that was left to me." She closes her eyes and strokes Alex's forehead, "But now that I know he is not gone, just lost, trapped inside his mind, inside some world where he can be hurt and frightened, I am not going to allow him to remain there, not alone. He is my baby. I love him too much to allow this suffering to continue."  
  
Above them the sky light begins to open, preparing for the massive burst of Alex Summer's powers.

On the Shi'ar throne world of Chandilar, chaos reigns. The slaves from the mines have broken their chains, with help from Raza and several others who wished to re-establish the throne to its proper owner. Commandeering skimmers and barges, they have converged on the capitol now, and have taken the guard posts, which are strangely unprepared for the attack,  
  
Hepzibah, riding behind Ch'od on a two-person skim cycle, calls out, "This makes no sense. Corsair left the mines hours ago. He should have alerted them. They should be expecting us."  
  
"Razzza may have taken out the Informant before he could forewarn the Imperial Guard."  
  
Hepzibah narrows her eyes in a human gesture of displeasure that she learned from Corsair, and backs up her anger with the swishing of her graceful tail. "And did Raza kill the Majestor too? I think something is wrong here. I think Raza takes advantage of a palace coup, and puts us in the middle."  
  
"Doessss it matter how we get where we are, Kitten?" Ch'od asks, "Asss long asss we are free."  
  
The pretty little cat who had, before her people had been wiped out by D'Ken's greedy nonchalance, been the sheltered runt of her litter, bares small sharp white fangs in a low growl, "Raza may be leading us to our doom."  
  
The palace looms ahead and though Ch'od says nothing he too does not like the many lights that glow so late at night. He doesn't miss the damage on the wing where he knows the Majestor's chambers are. One wall bows strangely, windows shattered, as if an explosion had come from within.  
  
Hepzibah sees none of this. She only sees the place where Corsair had fallen. She will find him in there and if he is not alive she will give him the rites of his people and properly send him to whatever afterlife the humans believed in.  
  
She prays to her own gods though that he be alive. 


	16. Family

Corsair _is_ alive, though he sprawls barely semi-conscious and completely forgotten in the corner of Lilandra's chambers. Stunned by Raza's blast, he is having trouble getting his body to obey his brain. He has managed to prop himself up on his hands and his eyes are starting to remember how to focus.  
  
Dimly, he looks across the room to watch Alex fall to his knees, clutching at his head, golden light in his eyes and his hands. What is happening to him? He...that light...Corsair's dazed mind struggles to remember that light from a time when he was not this worthless, crawling thing that had been broken so easily and betrayed all he believed in...when he was still named Christopher, a husband, a father, a man...  
  
His son had been the secret weapon that had damaged the gate that would have brought his entire family to D'Ken and doomed Earth to the madman's destruction. All this time, the questionings and the beatings, Alex had been what the Majestor had been looking for and he never even suspected. The boy had brought down their attackers without anyone knowing it.  
  
Raza knows it now, though, and he understands what is ahead of him. The brainwashed slave, who thought of himself as a loyal citizen of the Majestor, has the power to destroy worlds within him. The cyborg insurrectionist brings his sword to the ready. He will save his people by killing D'Alken before he is turned into a weapon.  
  
"No!" Lilandra cries. But she is not fast enough to stop Raza.  
  
Instead, it is Corsair who tackles Raza, having at last forced his body to obey his commands. The two men tumble across the room, grappling for control of Raza's weapon.  
  
Lilandra runs to Alex's side, crouching beside him, watching as his powers make his hands and eyes begin to glow brightly, "Alex, can you hear me? You need to fight this. Pull your powers back. Get control. _Take_ control."  
  
He cradles his hands in his head and moans, "Its not right..." he mutters, "None of it...it's a lie, a lie."  
  
Across the room, with a cry of rage and determination, Corsair rips the wrist mounted weapon from Raza's arm, leaving him only the stump where his flesh hand had been removed. He swings it, cracking the cyborg on the natural side of his face.  
  
Raza spits blood at Corsair, "I knew you were the lapdog of the Majestor."  
  
Corsair bashes him again, harder this time, "This had nothing to do with D'Ken." He growls, "It is about my son. It has always been about him. I thought I was keeping him safe. I thought I was doing the right thing."  
  
"How noble." Comes a cold hard voice at the door.  
  
Deathbird, pale and in obvious pain from her wound, but nonetheless holding a sword of her own. She spreads her shameful wings and swoops across the room faster than anyone would have thought. She lands in front of Lilandra. "Well, Big Sister, this does seem to be a bit of a mess. Our brother dead, betrayed by his little pet, obviously to win your favor. It is so plain that D'Alken loves you dearly."  
  
Lilandra is unafraid by her sister's accusations, "Alex killed no one."  
  
"_Alex_ is it?" Deathbird smirks, "You spent too long on Earth. It made you soft. How _did_ you get back, anyhow?" She looks at D'Alken, "It has something to do with the boy." She crosses to him, seeing the sweat on his face, the tremble in his fingers, the light, the strange golden light. "The powers that sent my loyal Gladiator through the wall, That's it, isn't it. Our sweet pet is a ticking time bomb." She grabs the young man's face tight enough to cut his cheeks with her nails, "Tick tick tick, you might be worth keeping around after all, D'Alken."  
  
"Mastress?" the terrified slave murmurs, and the golden light in his eyes brightens.  
  
A blast of light separates the two, Corsair has figured out how to operate the weapon he has stolen from Raza, "Get away from my son." He orders.  
  
Deathbird glares at him, a smirk on her lips, eyes flaring, "Doesn't my husband _own_ you?"  
  
Corsair's eyes are like ice, "No one owns me. Not anymore. Now step away or you die."  
  
Raza, wiping blood from his torn lips, watches the scene amazed at the change in the human. He knew Corsair to be hesitant to fight, meek in the presence of his Shi'ar masters. But, he sees now the spirit that remains in him, faces with danger to his hatchling. Raza is a rebel, more machine than man, but be once was a father.  
  
His opinion of the Earther suddenly changes.  
  
Deathbird's does not.  
  
She screeches like a hawk and her wings snap out. She launches herself at him and though he fires wildly, the woman is possessed by hatred and madness. She is on him and her sword drives through him.  
  
Corsair cries out in agony as the blade runs him through.  
  
His cry is echoed by his son's.  
  
Alex flings his body forward, his hands flat in front of him, Golden rings explode from the tips and Deathbird is engulfed. She is thrown off of Corsair, the young man's powers so tightly focused that they do not disturb the hair on the man's head. The woman is slammed into the wall in a bloody heap, her neck snapping with an audible crack. She slides to the ground and with the last of her energy she murmurs, "D'Alken?" in a slightly bemused voice.  
  
The young man lowers his hands and says, quietly, "My name is Alex Summers." He rips the golden chain off his neck, the symbol of his ownership.  
  
Lilandra whispers his name but he pays her no attention. He falls to his knees beside his father. Christopher Summers smiles up at his son, pained but proud. "Hey, champ..." he says, reverting to English, though it has been years since he has spoken the language of his home world.  
  
"Dad." Alex says, tears streaming down his face. He too speaks his almost-forgotten native language, bird song Shi'ar inappropriate and unwanted at this moment. "I am sorry. This is all my fault. I didn't know. They just came out, those powers, they just came out and I killed Mom and Scotty, and trapped us here."  
  
"Your mother is alive." Chris tells him, his eyes fluttering to look at Lilandra. "She says she's seen her. Scott too. You didn't kill them. You saved them from what we have suffered. Loss of freedom, loss of self..." He grimaces. "I should have protected you, 'Lexxy. I should have tried harder to get you home."  
  
Lilandra kneels beside Alex, "You can go home now, Alex, you can be with them again. You have the power."  
  
He looks up at her, and speaks in Shi'ar, his training as a slave still too fresh in his mind, "And, my father?"  
  
Lilandra shakes her head, sadly, "He must stay here, He has nothing to return to. You have a body waiting for you, cared for for all these years by your very devote mother."  
  
Alex looks back at his father, "I can't leave him alone here."  
  
"He is not alone."  
  
Alex turns his head and gasps at the two who stand in the doorway,  
  
Chris manages a smile through blood flecked lips, "Hepzibah..."  
  
The cat is at his side in a moment, nuzzling against his cheek with an audible purr, "I could not wait so long for you to come back to me, so I come to you."  
  
Ch'od ignores the sentimental scene. He pulls Raza to his feet, "The Miness are empty. The ccccity isss oursss."  
  
Raza turns to Lilandra, "You are Majestrix, My Lady. Say the word and we will defend you from any who oppose you."  
  
Ch'od looks down at Corsair, "And we will begin with the Informer."  
  
Lilandra opens her mouth to order him to lower his weapons, but it is Raza who puts out his hand, "Leave him be, Ch'od. He has proven his worth this day."  
  
The Majestrix smiles, "Indeed he has. Raza, Ch'od, is it? Call off the rebels. This uprising is over. The prisoners of the mines will have their circumstances investigated, and proper recompense will made to all who have been wrongly imprisoned."  
  
Raza nods, and after he retrieves his wrist appliance, he leads Ch'od out.  
  
"Alex, help me move your father to the bed." Lilandra says.  
  
Without her help, the young man, who has been better cared for and is stronger than his father, lifts the injured man, laying him gently on the satin sheets. Hepzibah climbs onto the bed, concerned, and opens Chris's shirt, "You are a lucky man." She tells him, "It is a clean wound." She beds down and licks the blood away.  
  
Alex gasps and puts his hand out. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Its alright." Lilandra tells him, "She is Mephitisoid. Their saliva has healing properties."  
  
Alex frowns, "Oh." He says, but he looks quite green at the action.  
  
Chris, however, smiles as the pain subsides and the bleeding begins to stop. "You are too good for me, Little Kitten."  
  
Hepzibah smiles too, "You saved me once, cowardly shell of a man. I return the favor." She nuzzles him teasingly and turns to Alex, "You are my Corsair's cub?" She asks, in heavily accented English.  
  
Alex, dumbfounded, nods, to flabbergasted to manage anything verbally.  
  
She purrs, "I thought so. You have his eyes."  
  
Chris beckons to Alex, and says, "Champ, I am proud of you. You saved us both, but..."  
  
"...but now I have to go home." Alex says, finishing his father's thought. "It is too dangerous for me to be here. If anyone knew what I can do, none of the dimensions would be safe." He wipes tears from his eyes, "Dad, there is so much I want to say to you..."  
  
"Alex, 'Lexxy, you don't need to say anything." Chris says, "You want to prove you love me, go home and take care of your mother. Let her know that I never stopped loving her. Scott, too, you go home and keep an eye on them for me. Keep them safe." He reaches up and pats his son on the cheek.  
  
Alex puts his hand on his father's and holds it there for a moment, "Ok, Daddy, I can do that." He straightens and looks at Lilandra. "How do I get home?"  
  
Lilandra smiles and says, "Just wake up, Alex."  
  
He closes his eyes and that part of him still attached to his own dimension beckons, He reaches out and opens his eyes.


	17. Awakening

  
  
And, the alarms stop blaring.  
  
Abdol gasps and checks the drain, "They've stopped. His powers...he pulled them back."  
  
"Doctor." Kathy whisper, pointing at the unconscious form of Lillian Andrews. They watch in amazement as her body fills with a yellow light that reminds Kathy of...something she can't quite recall.  
  
It flares brightly and then...the woman is gone.  
  
Abdol takes a step backwards. "What the hell?"  
  
Kathy reaches out and touches the spot where the woman had lay. Her heart plunges in her chest. "She's gone..." And with her went every hope of her son's awakening. She looks down at him, his head cradled in her lap. She strokes his forehead until the furrows there relax, "I'm sorry, Baby. We tried. We tried and it almost killed you. Forgive me. Forgive a foolish old lady."  
  
Alex's eyes flutter open and focus on her, "You aren't old." He whispers, "You're just mom."  
  
Kathy stares at him, afraid she is dreaming, that she'll wake up because this can't be happening. She summons her courage and manages a hesitant, "A-Alex?"  
  
He smiles, wearily, "You look just like I remember you."  
  
And, it is too much for Kathy. She falls over her son and begins to cry. He folds his arms around her and his tears join hers.  
  
Annie enters, and opens her mouth to speak. Dr. Abdol stops her, "Shhh." He urges.  
  
"What happened?" the nurse whispers.  
  
"He came home." Abdol says, "Alex came home."

Corsair's wounds have healed. He has been a guest of Lilandra while he mended, and Hepzibah has never left his side, eventually sharing his bed as the man at last allowed himself to return her love. She is devoted to him, and while he still doesn't understand why a creature of such perfection would want a man like him, he cannot deny that he is in love with her as well. They are inseparable, and for the first time in a long time, they are happy.  
  
The New Majestrix has spent the past month rebuilding from her brother's failures. D'Ken and Deathbird's bodies were burned and the ashes scattered according to Shi'ar funerary rites, and no charges of wrong doing have been levied against Lilandra, who had not, in fact, disposed of either of them. Those that the tyrants had imprisoned in the mines had their conditions re-evaluated and though not everyone is set free, enough receive an official pardon that the Insurrectionists, who are not so blind as to not know which amongst them were truly criminals, are satisfied. The new ruler of the empire is not a dictator.  
  
Raza, and by association, Ch'od have gained a passing respect for Corsair, understanding now the lengths he went to do what he thought best for his child. They are not quite friends, yet, but they are no longer enemies.  
  
One day, Corsair, healed now full, but still tended to by his beloved kitten, comes to Lilandra and asks what is to become of him, "I cannot sit in the palace idle, Majestrix. It is not my nature. But neither can I walk freely in the city. There are still too many that I wronged when I was the informer."  
  
Lilandra smiles an enigmatic smile and says, "Come with me."  
  
An hour later, Corsair finds himself before the most magnificent craft he has ever seen, "This is the Star Jammer." Lilandra says, "The jewel in the crown of a fleet that my brother all but destroyed. They captured her, intending on learning to fly her, but no one ever figured her out."  
  
Corsair's eyes shine at the sight of the beautiful craft, but he feigns nonchalance, "How do you know I will be able to do what others have failed?"  
  
"Because you brought a floundering plane down to a safe landing while your mind was stuck between dimensions." Lilandra says, "Who else could have done that? Who else deserves this ship?"  
  
He reaches out and strokes the copper colored metal of the ship and it almost seems to ripple beneath his touch like Hepzibah does when he strokes her white and orange fur. To fly again. He never expected it. "A ship like this...she needs a crew."  
  
"You have one." Lilandra smiles, even wider, her exotically marked eyes, as bright as his, "It has already been arranged." She beckons and two figures step out of the ship.  
  
Corsair is pleasantly surprised to see Raza and Ch'od waiting there, their faces stern but expectant. They are, like Christopher, like Hepzibah, the only ones of their kind. This is not their world, though Raza, had once belonged here. It is time for them to leave. There is a universe waiting for them, a thousand dimensions that needed to be explored.  
  
"What is all this?" Corsair asks.  
  
"We're waiting for our captain." Raza smirks, a lopsided smirk because of the mechanics on his face.  
  
Corsair turns to the Majestrix, "Lilandra, what are you asking of me here?"  
  
Lilandra shakes her feathered head, "I am asking nothing of you. I owe your son, Christopher Summers. Had he not stranded me on Earth, I might have continued as I was, a conqueror and a monster. I might have ended no better than D'Ken. Instead I am a better person, a better leader, for having seen that other worlds are filled with people, rather than just resources for the Shi'ar to steal. The Star Jammer and its crew is yours because it is the only way for me to thank you both."  
  
Hepzibah takes her love's hand and leads him up the gangway of the ship, to the pilot's seat.  
  
He hesitantly takes it and Christopher Summers, now and forever Corsair, realizes at last that he too is home.  
  
The End


End file.
